Make sustainability sexy again
View of gate at sunset at Wonderfruit festival in Pattaya, Thailand
Sdegennaro, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
At the Wonderfruit Festival in Thailand you can party in a climate-positive way. The founders don't even want to enrich themselves with it
First you see drones pulling huge dream catchers across the sky. Then the festival site appears on the horizon like a surreal oasis between fields and palm trees. In the center of the hill idyll dotted with tents and huts stands the "Solar Stage," a four-meter-high plywood pyramid with space for a stage and a DJ booth. Hanging ladders lead to the roof. People dance on the struts, the side turrets, and even on the tiny steps their bodies pulsate to the music. The scaffolding, which is put together without any screws, wobbles dangerously.
"Something like that wouldn't work in Germany, would it?" laughs Montonn Jira. The 39-year-old is one of the founders of the music festival that has sprung up in the no man's land between Bangkok and Pattaya. In Thailand he is also known as a model, musician and actor. "Jay", as he is called here, is a dazzling figure. In the morning he could be seen racing through the newly built festival setting on a mountain bike wearing a glittery cape and turban, laughing hysterically like a king who is ecstatic about his lands.
His partner Pranitan "Pete" Phornprapha appears more down to earth in his cowboy hat and rubber boots. His father owns the property. Wealthy Thais play golf here 361 days a year. During the four days of Wonderfruit, however, the "Siam Country Club" is transformed into a testing ground for a better future. The organizers call it a "festival of ideas". "We have long thought that a festival is the perfect place to inspire people to be responsible consumers and eco-conscious, because you can combine these things with music, fun and even decadence," explains Phornprapha, whose father launched an environmental campaign called "Think Earth" in the 1990s.
At that time, hardly anyone in Thailand had heard of global warming. "Concepts like recycling have still not caught on in Southeast Asia," he explains. "The plastic bag problem is particularly serious in Thailand."
While other festivals leave behind garbage deserts and waste huge amounts of energy, Wonderfruit wants to show in a small space how to minimize environmental pollution: plastic is prohibited, everything from the cups to the cutlery is biodegradable. The stages are almost entirely made of bamboo, coconut rattan or rice fiber. In addition to a compost heap, the site has its own filter system that processes the water from a nearby lake for drinking. "We have been CO2 neutral since last year," explains Phornprapha proudly. This was achieved by calculating the ecological footprint of the festival guests in mangrove trees and then actually planting them. The branching mangroves are one of nature's most efficient carbon dioxide stores. Thanks to the Wonderfruit team, 10,000 new trees are now in the Thor Heyerdahl Climate Park in Myanmar. The visitors themselves contributed 5,000: for every drink bought during the "Tree Hour" between five and seven o'clock, another was planted.
Drinking climate-positively for a clear conscience - is this perhaps just the intention to cash in as a supposedly selfless climate savior? Phornprapha rejects such accusations of "greenwashing": It is just a green paint job, without "ethos, heart and commitment. For us, the desire to do something for the environment came first, and the festival slowly grew around this idea. We constantly measure our results and get advice from environmental organizations on what we can improve."
In the future, the two, who despite growing popularity have not made any profits in the fourth year, want to invest more in solar energy. They admit that they are still dependent on diesel generators to power the stages.
They don't believe in a missionary, raised "green" finger anyway. Eco-awareness should trickle in more casually, as "good form and at best as a trend," says Jira, grinning charmingly: "We want to make sustainability sexy."
Wonderfruit, which began as an idealistic DIY project, is now one thing above all else: a professional music and wellness festival that embodies a hip zeitgeist rather than a cereal image. During the day, visitors can take yoga and DJ courses or listen to lectures in the "Rainforest Pavilion", and at night they can party to DJ greats like Richie Hawtin or local stars like Singto Numchok. 13,000 visitors came in December 2017. The organizers affectionately call them "Wonderers". Many come from the "panther and tiger states" of Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam and Malaysia, which put their environment last on the way to becoming industrial nations. More and more Chinese are also coming, whose metropolitan areas demand urgent environmental solutions like nowhere else. However, the majority (48.5 percent) are Thais, many of them young hipsters from the middle and upper classes who can easily afford the entrance fee of 5,500 baht (around 140 euros).
For most visitors, the eco aspect is not the main focus, but rather seeing and being seen. Many wear feather headdresses and glitter, skimpy outfits and flowing hippie robes. Sometimes you think you've landed at the Asian version of Coachella, the festival in California that is known as the Instagram catwalk. In fact, the Wonderfruit's natural backdrops are perfect for selfies and other photos as evidence of your own exciting life. More and more fashion companies are also coming here for professional photo shoots. The concept of smuggling environmental protection ideas through the back door seems to be working.
The highlight of Wonderfruit remains the sunrise every morning. As if drawn by a magnetic force, everyone who is still awake gathers at the Solar Stage for the last DJ set of the night. From here you can best watch the sky slowly change color, from dark blue to purple, from turquoise to pink, until the sun finally flashes behind the hills and bathes everything in dazzling light. Then a cheer goes through the crowd. Many are hugging each other like it's New Year's Eve at 12. It's a commonplace that suddenly seems natural and true in the cool eco-utopia: every new day on this earth is a reason to celebrate.