PHICHIT ― Provincial authorities on Thursday resolved to turn Bung Si Fai, the country's third largest lake and home to more than 100 bird species, into a so-called "monkey cheek" or water retention area to store and drain water alternately during the dry and rainy seasons.
Bung Si Fai, one of the country’s protected wetlands. (Photos by Kosol Nakachol)
The decision also means that Bung Si Fai, which covers 5,300 rai of marshland, will be removed as a designated site under the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, better known as the Ramsar Convention.
The Ramsar Convention is an international environmental treaty signed by 168 countries in 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar. It aims to conserve and promote wise use of wetlands, with the goal of achieving sustainable development.
Bung Si Fai is one of Thailand’s 13 wetland sites designated on the Ramsar List and covers a total area of 245,625 rai.
The resolution was made at a meeting of a committee on survey and study for Bung Si Fai’s landscape improvements chaired by Phicihit governor Jakkarin Plienwong. Representatives from 30 private and public agencies attended the meeting.
The meeting agreed to cancel Bung Si Fai’s membership on the grounds that it had been registered as a wetland of international importance only on the claim that it was a habitat for rare birds and that the international body had never cared for or provide assistance to help develop it, Mr Jakkarin said.
The decision came after Prime Minister Yingluck Shinanawatra ordered the dredging of hundreds of rai of Bung Si Fai marshlands, that had became shallow, during a visit to the lower-north province to follow up the water management programme from upstream to downstream areas.
She also instructed the governor to make the most of and come up with proposals to develop the province’s main natural water resource.
Little more than a week after the premier’s visit, the cabinet resolved to spend 4.6 million baht to rehabilitate Bung Si Fai and three other lakes ― Bung Boraphet, Kwan Phayao and Nong Han.
