Long-time residents’ lands now on wrong side of park boundaries

The residents of Moo 3, 4, 5 and 6 of Tambon Nong Bua claimed on Thursday that park officials had recently set up territory marker signs in their rubber plantations and fruit orchards as well as some home properties without advance notification or consent. Each family lost between five and 15 rai of land in the process.
Tambon Nong Bua kamnan Sunthorn Buaphetch said most villagers have lived and farmed for generations on the land they inherited from their ancestors. Some fruit trees they planted were 200 years old so they certainly were not new encroachers, as the park’s recent announcement and demarcation suggested, he said.
Araya Bualuang, 35, found that her backyard and rubber plantation were outlawed by the park’s new demarcation. She said that her father bought the 10-rai of land which had a Sor Kor 1 land document for a rubber plantation for years before she built her home there in 2010. 
She said park officials told her family that they could cut rubber trees and re-plant them as normal because the family had the document. However, she did not understand why park officials would put the new boundary markers on her property. She said she and fellow villagers feared the park would lay claim to the lands and arrest or drive them out.
Rabieb Boonteungjit, 63, who inherited the land from her grandparents and had a 200-year-old Durian tree she named “Ai Pruan”, called for related agencies to help prove the villagers’ rights over land to prevent a dispute with park officials or future arrests.