Thailand sank 25 tanks in 2010. Nine years later, 53 fish species thrived

Almost 10 years after the tanks went under, researchers from Ramkhamhaeng University in Bangkok did some diving to see what had grown up around the man-made reef sites. Battle tank is made for war. It is built to cross tough terrain, take a beating and dominate a battlefield. But what if the battlefield disappears and there is no place for the tank to go? Some retired tanks have found an unexpectedly useful second life, under the sea in southern Thailand. According to an online repor by Aljazeera, in August 2010 Thailand’s army sank 25 old Chinese-made battle tanks into the Gulf of Thailand off Narathiwat province. 273 old railroad cars and 198 scrapped garbage trucks went under the water to serve as an artificial reef and create new fishing grounds. The strange undersea haul was part of an effort to help fishing communities whose catches have plummeted after decades of overfishing. And then, over the next few years, something astonishing happened: the cast-off military hardware began to attract marine life.As per the report, it all began with a problem common to fishing communities around the world. Local fishermen in southern Thailand had complained of dwindling catches and final...