In September 2001, Dieter and I bought a small garden, (600 sq. m.) with a small house. In Denmark it's a common thing to buy such a garden if you live in a city appartment. The place is sort of a garden society and there can be up to several hundreds gardens in each society. You pay a small amount of rent and then you are allowed to live there during the summer month - Which means from April to October. Although the main goal of the garden society would be that you’re able to grow your own vegetables, which you can’t do in an apartment.

Our neighbors in the garden society is, Cathrine and Joachim and their two children Selma and My. Joachim is a biologist, studying ants and in October they all left for Thailand because Joachim had to go and work there for six month. When they left, Dieter and I already knew that we were going to Thailand ?So of course we agreed on visiting them and it was great fun being there. We stayed there for a week and like Cathrine and Joachim we became a sort of the establishment of Ngao. Everybody was so helpful and hospitable.

It would be too difficult to describe Joachims project to the fullest, but basically the ants can help save the mangroves. The ants are deterring the beetles from eating of the leaves and when there are no holes in the leaves is it a lot more difficult for the crabs to eat the leaves.

Protecting the mangroves is very important for several reasons. For instance is the mangrove a highly used breeding ground for a lot of fish, so if the mangroves vanish, some of the fish in the sea will disappear. And of course will the animals living in the mangroves die if their habitat is destroyed. Another reason to protect the area is to avoid soil erosion, if too much silt is washed into the sea, it can seriously damaged coral reefs.