The viral "Save Thap Lan" campaign on social media is probably the biggest hoax of the year. As simple as that.
Sorry, but this campaign is definitely not an attempt to save precious rainforests. It is merely a last-ditch effort by national park authorities to maintain their sole power over forest management.
What do you call people who insist on keeping what is not theirs?
Rich with flora and fauna, Thap Lan is the largest national park in northeastern Thailand, covering 1.4 million rai of land in five districts in Nakhon Ratchasima, Prachin Buri and Sa Kaeo provinces.
The "Save Thap Lan" online public hearing is organised by the Department of National Parks, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation (DNP) to urge the public to stop using new boundary lines in Thap Lan National Park.
Using scare tactics, a sense of urgency, conspiracy theories and misleading photos, the campaign claims that the use of a new park boundary is a suspicious, hush-hush affair to carve out 265,286 rai of Thap Lan forest.
Unless the NOs in the online hearing are high enough by the July 12 deadline, the campaign warns that the country will lose a vast tract of pristine forest and wildlife habitats, soon to be devoured by developers.
Nature lovers overwhelmingly responded with NO clicks, sending the "Save Thap Lan" campaign's posts to the top of social media.
Why is it a hoax?
For starters, the controversial areas are not forests. The use of forest photos with teeming wildlife for the campaign is a deliberate attempt to mislead the public.
In reality, these areas are communities and farmlands located on the outskirts of the park. They existed before being unilaterally included in Thap Lan National Park in 1981 without proper field surveys.
Local communities have the right to have their lands back.
National park authorities admitted their mistakes and promised to rectify them. Another lie. They did nothing, leading to decades of protests, negotiations and participatory field surveys from all stakeholders, including forest agencies.
This resulted in a 2000 agreement to adjust park boundaries to exclude communities and add over 100,000 rai of rainforests to the national park. Still, nothing moved due to the forest authorities' resistance.
For over four decades, people in Thap Lan have faced the risk of getting arrested and jailed for forest encroachment, even though they were living and farming on their own lands.
Is this justice?
Persistent grassroots protests later led to the Ombudsman's investigations, which confirmed the Thap Lan national park's invasion into community lands. The Ombudsman sent their recommendations to the government to use the park boundary adjustment in 2000 to return the land to the communities. The Office of the National Land Policy Board offered the same recommendation. On March 14, 2023, the previous government endorsed their proposals in a cabinet resolution and ordered the Ministry of National Resources and Environment to implement them.
This is not a hush-hush effort to steal national parkland. The process has been ongoing for decades with participation from all stakeholders. The recent onsite public hearing on the new park boundary was also organised by the DNP itself.
Since the onsite public hearing from the locals approved the mutual agreement on the new park boundary, the DNP turned to the clueless public to turn the tables.
Apart from using lies, the "Save Thap Lan" campaign also triggers public concerns that the forest will soon fall into investors' hands if the government grants land rights to local communities.
Instead of blaming the locals, state authorities should blame themselves for failing to enforce land use regulations. Their failure to stop tea money and punish corrupt officials is also to blame. Doesn't it take two to tango in land corruption?
The lack of land security often leads to the locals' lack of motivation to develop their land, as they never know when they might be arrested and sent to jail. When buyers approach, is it surprising that they decide to sell their plots of land?
Still, the number of people who continue farming far exceeds those who sell their lands. Should we rob them of their land rights?
The reductive yes or no campaign to get rid of the park zoning adjustment without informing the public about the history of land rights problems in Thap Lan is also deceptive.
Land rights conflicts in Thap Lan date back to the 70s when the military launched a resettlement programme there to counter the communist insurgency. The Agricultural Land Reform Office also used part of Thap Lan for the landless poor. These villagers, including indigenous forest dwellers, lived and farmed in Thap Lan before the areas were demarcated as a national park.
Ironically, while advocating for forest conservation, the then-Forest Department leased out large tracts of healthy forests in Thap Lan to investors for fast-growing eucalyptus tree plantations, destroying rich forest biodiversity for quick profit.
In 1990, they secured military support to evict Thap Lan villagers under the Khor Jor Kor forest eviction scheme. If not for the Anand Panyarachun administration halting the scheme following mass street protests, more than 10 million people across the country would have been evicted under the forest agencies' plan.
And why stir public fears about losing forest land to developers when the forest authorities themselves killed the measures to prevent land from changing hands?
Community land deeds, or chanote chum chon, were initiated by P-Move, a network of landless farmers and forest dwellers, to place land use under communal oversight with a commitment to forest conservation. It allows the land to be passed on to family members but prohibits its sale. In 2010, the Abhisit government adopted the idea, selecting 50 forest communities with strong conservation records for a pilot project.
Forest authorities vehemently opposed it, viewing community participation in land and forest use as a challenge to their power, although it is a constitutional right.
After the military coup in 2014, they enlisted troops to evict forest communities under the regime's "Reclaiming the Forest" policy. Those involved in the community land title project became the first targets of violent crackdowns.
The forest mandarins destroy efforts to prevent land in the forest from being devoured by outsiders. So why feign concern?
Community land deeds also align with the recommendations of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which advocates for granting land security to people in forests as an effective way to preserve forests and mitigate global warming. The Thai forest authorities reject this approach because it undermines their power.
Instead, while enforcing oppressive policies, they continuously amend forest laws to increase their power and impose harsher punitive measures against forest dwellers.
The 2019 National Park Act, passed just before the junta-installed National Legislative Assembly was dissolved, classifies all forest dwellers as illegal encroachers. It permits forest officials to destroy their dwellings on sight and imposes a maximum jail sentence of 20 years and a maximum fine of 2 million baht.
Under this draconian law, forest villagers must strictly adhere to regulations to be allowed to stay, but only for 20 years. After this period, the authorities will review their status and decide whether they can continue to reside there.
In short, landowners are treated as encroachers, losing their land rights and facing lifelong land insecurity.
Some suggest that further studies are needed to find solutions for different groups in Thap Lan. I must disagree. The people of Thap Lan have been deprived of their land rights for over four decades, with many subjected to arrests and imprisonment. In 2000, all stakeholders, including forest agencies, agreed to the new park boundary to restore justice by returning land rights to those living there before the national park was demarcated.
The government must uphold the agreement. Forest authorities should not be allowed to betray their pledge or deceive the public with a fraudulent campaign to preserve their power.
The stolen lands must be returned to their rightful owners. As simple as that.