Land encroachment to be probed

 

The move comes after the department recently discovered that about 65 rai of forest reserve areas in Phuket’s Freedom Beach, worth Bt4 billion, had been taken over by wealthy people.

 

Samak Donnapee, chief of the department’s Forest Land Management Bureau, said encroachment into forest reserves had been rising drastically over the past two years due mainly to the booming tourism industry and the rising price of agricultural products in Phuket, Phang-Nga and Krabi. Since 2010, about 2,848 rai of forest reserve land in Krabi, Phuket and Phang-Nga have been invaded. 

 

“A lot of resorts and rubber plantation were found set up in these areas,” Samak said.

The department will also investigate land title deeds and ownership documents issued in the past three years to see what entitles them to occupy forest reserves. 

 

“We found that there were abnormalities in the issuance of land title deeds over the past few years,” Samak said, adding that title deeds had been issued for most of the forest reserve areas. 

 

The RFD will also study satellite images to determine how the encroached land is being used and will also check the age of the trees in the area to determine how much of the forest reserve has been destroyed. 

 

“If we find that the so-called ownership is illegal, we will immediately arrest the people and demolish all structures built in the forest reserves,” he said. 

 

According to RFD’s report, 2,265.52 square kilometres in Krabi, 2,408.68sqkm in Phang-Nga and 169.30sqkm in Phuket have been marked out as forest reserves. 

 

Recently, the department found that wealthy people were encroaching into about 547 rai in the Ao Nang-Hang Nak forest reserve areas in Krabi. 

 

“We found that one man was behind all this. He usually asks local officials to issue title deeds for his land, before he sells the land off to other wealthy people,” Samak said. 

 

In addition, he said that several of the new landowners had visited his office to seek interpretation of the aerial images captured of their land. They also asked officials to issue documents saying that their land was not located in forest reserves.

 

The department also found that there was an abnormality in the interpretation of the aerial images. It was discovered that some of the interpretations of aerial images of encroached land in Phuket’s Freedom Beach, Phang-Nga’s Koh Yao Island, and Prachuap Khiri Khan’s Mae Ram Phung Beach had been done by one person. In reality, these aerial images need to be interpreted by a group of experts from the committee set up to solve problems with encroachment. 

 

“Distorted interpretations might benefit rich people who want to own land in forest reserves,” Samak said.