Phaya Sua taskforce launches operation against influential Thap Lan National Park encroachers
The special forest crime-suppression taskforce, Phaya Sua, has launched a week-long operation against influential figures found to have encroached upon Thap Lan National Park, part of the Dong Phaya Yen-Khao Yai Forest Complex, which is the country’s second natural World Heritage Site.
The 1.4-million rai (224,000 hectares) national park – Thailand’s second largest – is known to have been extensively encroached upon and turned into popular resorts, many of them by influential figures.
The matter has been raised in recent years at the World Heritage Committee’s meetings as one of its “most depressing” issues, and one that has posed threats to the area’s world heritage status.
The government has been trying to address the issue by strictly enforcing forest laws against encroachers.
Complaints have been filed against more than 450 encroachers since 2011, the highest number ever in one area.
These include the high-profile case involving former deputy national police chief Pol General Jumpol Manmai, who was brought to Nakhon Ratchasima’s provincial court early this month to hear its verdict on the charge against him of forest encroachment in the park.
Chaiwat Limlikhit-aksorn, who heads up the taskforce, said Phaya Sua had joined hands with the government’s influential-figures suppression unit in launching the current operation.
On Tuesday, it started enforcing Article 22 of the National Parks Act, which gives forestry officials authority to remove properties found encroaching upon the park areas with 30 days’ notice, initially moving against a kamnan in Na Dee district’s Tambon Thung Pho.
He alone has encroached on nearly 950 rai of the park, and turned the area into a cassava plantation with apparent land allotments.
Some vacation residences have also been built on the site, Chaiwat said.
“The fact in this area is that poor farmers would be encouraged to clear the forests, before they are turned into resort developments by rich or influential figures,” he added.
Despite the state’s suppression efforts, new encroachment cases are still discovered in the area as it is heavily promoted as “one of the seventh-best ozone zones in the world”, although there is no confirmation as how this description has come to be.