Ten years ago this month, the Abhisit Vejjajiva administration issued a ground-breaking resolution that aimed to improve the livelihood of sea gypsies in the South, ensure community land rights, and restore their traditions.
Under the resolution, the state would adopt a regulation that allowed them to fish and trade their catch, and there would be special social and cultural zones.
Their nationality problem would be addressed and the state would do more to erase ethnic prejudice and discrimination.
Needless to say, the sea gypsies had high hopes and dreams.
But 10 years on, their lives have hardly changed. They are struggling hard as some major problems, in particular land rights, remain untouched.
"We were really excited with the resolution. No one believed the state would give us any attention. Things were good for the first two or three years, and we saw results. Sea gypsies were no longer arrested as there were attempts to find a common ground with the authorities, said Orawan Hanthalay, a sea gypsy from Tab Tawan village, in Phangnga's Takua Pa district.
The indigenous woman shared her experience at a forum at the HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre to mark a decade since the resolution was passed.
Attending the online forum were sea gypsies from various areas, social workers, and state agencies. They tried to figure out what prevented the resolution from being put into practice.
They concluded a lack of understanding on the part of local authorities was a major problem. They had no idea about the cultural context of gypsies' lifestyle.
The authorities continued to designate community areas as a conservation zone which affected the locals harshly as it deprived them of land and food security.
Teera Salakpetch, former culture minister, who played a role in having resolution adopted, conceded the resolution has not led to action on the ground.
But the resolution issued on June 2, 2010, did help promote public understanding about sea gypsies and a certain level of acceptance.
There are around 12,000 sea gypsies living in five provinces and 41 localities. Most still lack land security.
Preeda Kongpaen, a well-known social worker from the Chumchon Thai Foundation, said the sea gypsy issue is a structural problem.
"The tourism policy is crushing sea gypsies. A large number of tourists penetrate the areas with huge sums of money, welcomed by both businesses and state agencies.
"However, sea gypsies are evicted from their homes, their ancestral lands. They lost access to the sea they used to fish as it was transformed into state conservation zones," said the social worker who has worked with sea gypsy communities since the 2004 tsunami.
The tsunami that hit the Andaman Sea has raised awareness about the existence of the sea gypsy ethnic minority.
But the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed a hard reality: sea gypsy communities are stuck in poverty and unable to sustain themselves.
Because of the virus, tourism-related income has dried up. Even though they can still fish to sustain themselves, they can not take their catch to a market that is tied to the tourism industry.
While some sea gypsy communities are lucky enough to be able to trade their fish for rice from Karen communities and farmers in the North, not all can do this.
The Moken community living on the Surin archipelago in Phangnga province are not allowed to fish in a nearby conservation zone, and since they no longer have an income from tourism, they have to rely on aid.
Taking away their rights to resources not only dealt a major blow to them, but also destroyed cultural values inherited from previous generations over hundreds of years.
The forum agreed the way out for the sea gypsies is to have the resolution upgraded into a law, an act on the promotion and protection of ethnic minorities.
State agencies have a tendency to say they have to abide by the law, which have better standing than cabinet resolutions.
For example, even though there is an agreement the authorities must compromise, allowing sea gypsies to enter a marine sanctuary, their traditional harvesting areas, in reality, park officers would arrest them if they found them there.
In many countries, governments have apologised for the way indigenous minorities have been treated.
We don't want such a moment in Thailand -- when succeeding generations have to apologise to ethnic minorities for the way they were treated, and question what we are doing today to these indigenous people.
Paskorn Jumlongrach is the founder of www.transbordernews.in.th.