Ministry targets people for misusing royally granted land in North
The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry is working on tearing down resorts that have been illegally built on land granted to them under a royal project in the forested areas of Mon Cham mountain now that their appeal period has expired.
Thanetphon Thanaboonyawat, secretary to the natural resources and environment minister, visited Chiang Mai’s Mae Rim district on Sunday (August 30) to follow up on solving land disputes in the Mae Rin National Forest.
He said that after investigating structures built in more than 13,000 rai of forest reserves in Chiang Mai's Pong Yaeng and Mon Cham subdistricts, his team found that 113 landowners had allegedly misused the land granted to them.
“Of the 113 landowners, 30 have either changed owners or sold their land to foreign businesses, so we no choice but to enforce the law until this problem is solved,” he said.
“After filing a lawsuit against these landowners in December last year, they were given eight months to file an appeal.”
He added that Mon Doi Loi Fah resort was among the 30 resorts that will be razed to the ground.
“As for the rest of the landowners, the team will encourage them to use the land in line with the royal project’s purpose,” he said.
Thanetphon added that the ministry has approved the Forest Resource Management Office 1 (Chiang Mai)'s proposal to set up a committee to monitor the situation and come up with a long-term solution.
“Once land problems in Mon Cham area have been resolved, we will shift our focus to other forest reserves,” he added.
