In our collective perception, the southern provinces are often linked to violence and terrorism due to the protracted insurgency and the daily killings there. So much so that much other news from the South is overshadowed, brushed aside and gains little public attention.
This is most unfortunate. The South, flanked by the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand, is not only the cash cow of the tourism industry, thanks to its world-famous beaches and islands, but the coastal seas are important sources of income for millions in the fishery industry, thanks to a relatively healthy marine ecology.
However, this situation might not last much longer when the southern coasts are threatened by heavy industry pushed by successive governments and the industrial sector.
This is big, bad news. Not only for the South, but for the country. Yet it has received very little public attention and media scrutiny.
Among the threats are an off-shore oil drilling project off the coast of Nakhon Si Thammarat by Chevron, a multinational energy corporation. Following fierce local protests, the project has now been shelved. But it could rear its ugly head any time in the future.
Local resistance to the construction of the Pak Bara industrial project in Satun province has not received much media attention, at a time when national politics are engulfed in turmoil. The project involves the construction of a gigantic deep sea port, comparable to that at Laem Chabang, and a sweeping industrial complex for energy industries like the Map Ta Phut Industrial Estate in Rayong, which is notorious for its grave health and environmental hazards.
The deep sea port and industrial complex have received strong support from the officialdom and all political parties, including the ruling Pheu Thai Party and its arch-rivals the Democrats. The environmental impact assessment for the project was approved in 2006, without much participation and acknowledgement from local residents. The project falls under the country's 2-trillion-baht infrastructure development scheme.
Pak Bara is a coastal town populated by local fishermen and farmers who also financially benefit from tourism, thanks to a nearby national marine park. The Pak Bara industrial project will turn the peaceful Satun province upside down: The marine ecology will be destroyed, along with its tourism industry.
Pak Bara is also a transit pier for tourists to travel to Tarutao Marine National Park. Eighty percent of the local economy is generated from tourism. Part of the Petra Marine National Park in the Andaman Sea has to be revoked in order to make the deep sea port project possible.
The ensuing destruction of the rich marine ecology will undermine the proposal by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to Unesco aiming to declare Tarutao and adjacent marine parks in the Andaman Sea as a World Heritage Site.
During the past few years, locals have staged several protests and journeyed to Bangkok to petition politicians in power _ among them Suthep Thaugsuban, then deputy prime minister _ but to no avail.
Desperate to protect their home communities, the villagers and conservationists from Satun have joined the Student and People Network for Thailand's Reform, an ally of the anti-government protest led by People's Democratic Reform Committee in Bangkok, in the hope that the call for administrative reform and decentralisation will enable them to decide what kind of development is allowed in their home towns.
Satun is not alone. There are similar calls for community rights to manage their own natural resources in all parts of the country. Although this right is endorsed by the constitution, fierce centralisation has virtually rendered it impotent.
There is one little-known effort to make decentralisation possible without going through street protest. The Law Reform Commission is campaigning for a new Provincial Administration Law to decentralise decision-making power on development projects to provincial administration bodies. The proposed new law also calls for the election of governors in a bid to ease control from centralised officialdom based in Bangkok.
Many reform calls are based on grievances against injustice as well as the costly, time-consuming judicial procedures and rife corruption in the police force. Few pay attention to unfair, outdated laws which were written by the officialdom to preserve its central power. These laws must change - and with the input and approval of local communities.