It's a jungle out there for park officials

It's a jungle out there for park officials

Thap Lan National Park is a perfect "poster child" for the policy of the government and the National Council for Peace and Order to end land encroachment.

Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha pledged, shortly after seizing power on May 22, that the council would take serious action on this issue and promptly elevated it to a government priority. What is happening at Thap Lan, which is located in Na Di district of Prachin Buri and Wang Nam Khieo district of Nakhon Ratchasima, is one of the biggest test cases for encroachment thus far.

The park is liberally dotted with illegally built resorts and holiday homes, some — many, perhaps — owned by the rich and famous. They must go.

Outgoing park chief Taywin Meesap, who is behind the park restoration campaign, knows well how difficult and dangerous this is.

The park is handling 434 cases of encroachment, but only 37 have so far been resolved and demolition by park officials or the property owners carried out. The rest are waiting to be settled, most of them in Wang Nam Khieo.

Wang Nam Khieo and Na Di are very popular among tourists due to the fresh air and stunning scenic views, and a lot of money is made by resort operators and locals. That is why any attempt so much as to erect a warning sign ordering the encroachers to tear down their properties is met with fierce resistence.

Wang Nam Khiew district chief Pairat Limsakul is among the opponents of the encroachment campaign. He is concerned that it will spoil the tourism atmosphere during the peak tourism season now getting underway. He has asked the National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department to postpone its efforts until after February, citing the district's reliance on lucrative tourism. But the work of the park chiefs is moving ahead.

What the Wang Nam Khieo district chief is trying to do is not new. Park officials are quite familiar with the various forms of opposition from locals.

Mr Taywin, who has moved out of the park, is taking up a new position as chief of Khao Laem National Park in Kanchanaburi. He will swap positions with Khao Laem park chief Viroj Rojanachinda, according to a parks department order announced on Thursday.

His decision to quit the park is the result of enormous pressure put on him after he ordered one resort after another to be razed and the land returned to the people, culminating in a threat on his life and reports that gunmen were hired to kill him. After the transfer order was approved, he went public and admitted he was worried for his life.

The park chief is in transition, between packing his bags and hanging up his shingle in Kanchanburi. His days at Thap Lan are numbered, but he promises to leave the area with a bang by leading park officials, rangers, police and soldiers in putting up a demolition sign at Ban Talay Mok in Na Di district.

He promises an even bigger bombshell before his departure, though, by revealing all of the obstacles placed by officials and local politicians who are trying to subvert demolition orders, even as the parks department has made clear there will be no compromise with encroachers.

Security authorities, including soldiers and police, have joined park officials and rangers in the fight against encroachers. But they should not be left to do it all alone — a strong signal from the government's leaders slating those illegally occupying Thap Lan land would be a morale booster and send a message that this administration is taking this matter seriously.

The departure of Mr Taywin already raises the question of whether his successor will be able to carry on his work, as changes at the top are never guaranteed to produce certainties.

In fact, the fight against forest land encroachment should not rest on the shoulders of good park officials alone. The public can help to solve the problem too.

The department should post the names of resorts encroaching on forest land on its website in the form of a blacklist for the public to see. Then tourists could help by boycotting those places.

With a little help from tourists, illegal resorts on public land might not survive.


Saritdet Marukatat is digital media news editor, Bangkok Post.

Saritdet Marukatat

Bangkok Post columnist and former Digital Media News Editor

Saritdet Marukatat is a Bangkok Post columnist and former Digital Media News Editor at the paper. Contact Saritdet at saritdet@yahoo.com

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