Subscribe to our YouTube channel for free here: sc.mp/subscribe-youtube Thailand’s famed “floating monastery”, located south of the capital Bangkok and west of the mouth of the Chao Phraya river, is literally being wiped off the map as it becomes a symbol of the nation’s disappearing shores. The Ban Khun Samut Chin temple once stood in the middle of a village it served, but today it is being stranded by a combination of coastal erosion and rising sea levels that are stripping away shoreline at a rate of nearly 30 metres (98 feet) each year. Mangrove trees which once provided a natural defence against coastal erosion are being lost toc and rapid urbanisation. Volunteers have been trying to restore mangroves and build bamboo barriers to shore up the coastline, but have only managed to recover about six per cent of what has been lost. Experts worry that, given the pace of sea level rise and intensifying storms related to climate change, it may be too late to stop Thailand’s coastal erosion and save structures like the floating monastery.

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