National Park Office chief says law supports his position that area can’t be designated reclaimed forest
PUBLISHED : 28 Feb 2024 at 18:28
The head of the National Park Office insists that a disputed 3,000-rai area on the fringes of Khao Yai National Park has protected status and that its classification as a “buffer zone” is misunderstood.
Chaiwat Limlikit-aksorn was responding on Wednesday to information from the Royal Thai Survey Department (RTSD), which has finished surveying the disputed land that the Agricultural Land Reform Office (Alro) had earmarked for Sor Por Por 4-01 documents for landless farmers.
The surveyors found the land was not within the national park but was in the so-called buffer zone.
Mr Chaiwat disagreed. “I insist that the disputed land is not inside the buffer zone. We have a royal decree to support it,” he said.
“This is the evidence we have used to defend our national park land in court in the past 30 years.
“Based on Section 18 of the National Park Act, a forest buffer zone is marked 3 kilometres away from the boundary of a national park or a conserved forest. The buffer zone is not part of a reclaimed forest that the government can decide to preserve or allocate to farmers,” he added.
Mr Chaiwat said the Alro needs to understand the correct meanings of buffer zone, protected forest boundary and community forest before allocating any land for farmers.
He said the One Map project, a single map developed by the RTSD, has not yet been completed. This will have a detailed scale ratio of 1:4,000 and will be a reference for all government agencies to use to reduce conflicts due to the use of different map scales.
Mr Chaiwat said those who informed Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin on Tuesday that the disputed area in Khao Yai was not inside the national park were members of the One Map project committee.
He said he also wanted to have an opportunity to clarify the issue of the disputed land to the premier.
Mr Chaiwat was invited by two House committees on Wednesday to provide explanations about the land dispute in Khao Yai. One is the Committee on National Security, Border Affairs, National Strategy and National Reform; the other is the Committee on Land, Natural Resources and Environment.
After meeting some of the people who had previously received Sor Por Kor 4-01 documents in Khao Yai, he said they were not poor farmers but capitalists, politicians and investors.
Agriculture Minister Thamanat Prompow said earlier this week that hotels and resorts found built on plots of land around the park, which had been granted to landless farmers strictly for agricultural purposes, must be demolished and the land seized.
Mr Chaiwat has invited the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), the secretary-general of the Alro as well as the governor of Nakhon Ratchasima to survey the disputed land on Friday.
In a related development, political activist Sonthiya Sawatdee filed a lawsuit with the Central Administrative Court yesterday asking it to suspend issuing Sor Por Kor 4-01 certificates covering 1.6 million rai of land nationwide until the overlapping land issues between the Alro and 142 national parks have been resolved.