More than 200 encroachment sites in Wang Nam Kheow: park officials
The scale of encroachment on forest reserve land in Nakhon Ratchasima's Wang Nam Kheow district is too large for Tab Lan National Park officials to handle alone, park chief Tewin Meesap said yesterday.
"There are more than 200 encroachers. They have established villages inside the forest reserve," he said, highlighting the fact that encroachment was not perpetrated by rich people alone.
According to Tewin, some cases of encroachment traced back to 2000. These older cases, however, mostly involved resorts and vacation homes built by wealthy people. Fearing legal prosecution, the owners of these properties have not come forward.
Tewin said officials had posted announcements on more than 100 properties ordering the demolition of structures on the land.
"The court has already approved the demolitions of three properties," he said.
More than 100 workers and two backhoes were at the park's disposal and could be mobilised on any given day to raze the properties, he said.
Meanwhile, Forest Resources Management Office 8 in Nakhon Ratchasima is waiting to hear from the owners of 22 properties found inside the forest reserve in Wang Nam Kheow last month.
"We announced on August 25 that legal action would be taken, but none [of the property owners] has officially contacted us. This is the last day they can produce evidence to dispute the charge that their properties encroach on forest reserve," the office's director, Suthep Pawareswittayalarn, said yesterday.
He said his office was coordinating with other agencies to identify all the owners of encroaching properties.
"If the owners are identified, we will sue them for compensation," he said.
