Local divers pulled ghost nets and garbage off the reef at Haad Yao

Quietly one of the better things happening around the island's reefs lately, and it doesn't get nearly the attention the bigger tourism stories do. 🐠

What happened

The Phangan Sea Guardian Divers Club, working alongside international students and Thailand's Maritime Enforcement Command Centre, carried out a cleanup removing garbage and cutting away discarded ("ghost") fishing nets tangled around coral in the Thian Beach–Haad Yao area. Ghost nets are a genuine hazard for reef ecosystems — they keep snagging and killing marine life long after whoever lost or dumped them is gone, so clearing them is a direct, visible win for the reef rather than a symbolic gesture.

Part of a bigger pattern

This follows the same direction as the coral recovery work at Koh Ma we covered a couple of weeks back — genuine, ongoing local conservation work around Phangan's reefs, not a one-off event. If you dive or snorkel regularly around Haad Yao or Koh Ma, this kind of cleanup is a direct reason those sites keep looking as good as they do.