People can grow rice and other crops in the mountains, too, but to do so, they had to make terraces. Terraces are flatter places in the hilly mountains that are used to grow food. In the mountains, people also forage or search for food. They know their environment very well and are able to use some plants in the surrounding jungle for food or medicine. Lastly, people living in the coastal towns center their lives around the ocean. In these towns, many people work as fishermen or in tourism. Or they help to conserve the ocean.
Because the environment varies so much, here, people face different challenges. One challenge that is pretty common is drought or lack of water. When it rains less than normal, people have trouble growing their crops, wildfires can be started more easily and the animals have trouble, not having enough to drink. So you can see that a problem like drought affects everyone!
Another problem that these people can face is the environment being harmed by tourism. Sometimes when people visit Thailand, they are not respectful of the environment. They might litter or walk off trails or paths that hurt important plants. Sometimes, the Thai park rangers will close the parks to help with this problem and give nature a break. That's what it is important to respect the environment, at home or places you visit, to prevent challenges like these!
Sometimes, when the tide comes in very high to the houses close to the beach, it will flood them. To prevent this, people there have built their houses on stilts: that way, the houses won't get washed away with the tide!
