Helping the property vultures swoop in
News that is too weird to be true: Thailand's Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning (ONEP) supposedly wants to fix the boundaries of protected watersheds. So what does it do? It takes away the properties' protected status.
Construction firms and property speculators are probably salivating at the opportunity. Now they can gobble-up unprotected riverside parcels as quick as possible. If ONEP works as quickly as other Thai agencies, it will take them 25 years to decide how to start on the flawed plan.
ONEP is offering a golden opportunity to the Shinawatras (among Thailand’s busiest land developers) and other rich families to possess and develop some of the last decent terrain in the Kingdom. Goodbye forests, trees and animals. Hello flat-scrapped parcels covered in concrete and asphalt.
Kip Keino
Ban Nam Lat
