Asia’s coral gardener, in Eco-Business

The world has lost half of its coral reefs in 30 years. Malaysian oceanographer Anuar Abdullah has developed a simple, yet effective way to restore coral. He tells Eco-Business that no reef is the same, and successful reef rehabilitation depends on cooperation with local communities. Over the past 30 years, more than 50 per cent of […]

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Conservation activists urge post-pandemic tourism reset in Thailand in The Nikkei Asian Review

My latest article with Laure Siegel on conservation initiatives in the Gulf of Thailand is out in The Nikkei Asian Review. “There are kids in Thailand who cannot identify a coconut. And if people don’t learn to appreciate what their country has, they will only think about how to make money out of our natural […]

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Going ‘wild’ in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains in The Nikkei Asian Review

“Camera traps have been smashed and stolen. We have caught hunting dogs. A logging gang started to build a road through the national park so our team watched them for three days, then stormed the camp and arrested 20 people. The following day, everyone was freed, but at least the road was not built.” Laure […]

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Boutique hotels gain new ground in Bangkok in the Nikkei Asian Review

After lagging regional competitors, Thai capital invests in heritage accommodations. My latest with Laure Siegel in the Nikkei Asian Review. In downtown Bangkok, hardly a week goes by without a soft opening for a high-rise hotel offering a plush but hardly unique experience. With around 35 million visitors a year the Thai capital is a […]

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Tom Vater’s portrait of master architect Vann Molyvann in the Asia Wall Street Journal

The Asia Wall Street Journal published my portrait of master architect Vann Molyvann, the creator of Cambodia’s New Khmer Architecture in the 1950s, as a cover story in its weekend edition. In the years after Cambodia won independence from France in 1953, Mr. Molyvann, a student of Le Corbusier, set out under the tutelage of […]

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