Criminals are still getting away with murder in our forests

According to the park’s chief, Chaiwat Limlikhit-aksorn, the group sneaked into the forest by boat and headed upstream of Mae Pradone, one of the park's prime watershed areas, shooting animals along the way.

Rangers found traces of their presence a few days later and informed the chief. He then gathered a search party, but it still took more than three days to hunt down the hunters. In the meantime they had cut a bloody swathe through the park’s precious bio-diversity. Among other species, protected mouse deer and endangered creek frogs had fallen victim to the men’s senseless slaughter.

And this wasn’t the first time thugs had sneaked into the park and used it as their private playground, according to the chief.

This episode seemed to be over when Chaiwat and his team arrested the culprits and handed them over to police and the district chief, who then headed the investigation. But when the investigators forwarded the case to the prosecutor, the name of Pol Lt-Colonel Theerayut was missing from the eight listed on the summons document.

The argument at that time was that there was not enough evidence he had been present on the jungle killing spree. But the photos submitted by park authorities as part of its complaint told a different story. They showed him with the hunting party on the relevant dates.

The ensuing battle for justice saw the park chief send his rangers back to the crime scenes to take more photos so they could be compared with the shots of Theerayut that had been provided as evidence.

With the story making headlines, the Royal Thai Police decided to intervene. As the weight of forensic evidence mounted, Theerayut was finally charged and brought to trial alongside his accomplices.

But it took nearly five years for the final verdict to be reached. The group were found guilty of possessing and carrying weapons in the park without permission, and of illegally poaching and possessing wild animals and their carcasses. They were consequencely handed sentences of up to 10 months in jail.

The verdict may be welcomed by some observers, but for several others, this had been too long coming and would have dragged on even longer had it not made the national news. The case in fact demonstrated that crimes against wildlife in our natural reserves are still treated as relatively minor offences.

A lack of public awareness of the importance of bio-diversity is partly to blame. However, greater sensitivity toward this issue in the justice system would do much to help conserve our precious natural resources.

Given that the country is undergoing a period of reform, we have a timely opportunity to tighten related laws and introduce a specific judicial approach in a similar manner to that concerning corruption cases,  so that wildlife and forest crime is considered to be no less serious, reflecting the reality of the damage it does.