Thailand (Lonely Planet, 13th Edition) - China Williams [69]
Thailand’s parks are administrated by the National Park, Wildlife & Plant Conservation Department (DNP; www.dnp.go.th), which assumed control in 2002 from the Royal Forest Department. Its website helps you to book campsites and accommodation in advance, as well as providing lots of other park-related information.
Marine national parks (as well as unprotected areas) along the Andaman coast experienced varying amounts of damage from the 2004 tsunami. Roughly 5% to 13% of the coral in reef systems associated with these parks was estimated to have been heavily damaged by the waves or by debris brought by the waves. None of the damage was extensive enough to interfere with park activities in the long run, and in many areas the reefs seem to be bouncing back.
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A Land on Fire: The Environmental Consequences of the Southeast Asian Boom (2003), by James David Fahn, reports on the environmental outcome of Thailand and its neighbours’ conversion into modern, tourist-oriented countries.
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ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
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Deforestation, Flooding & Species Loss
Typical of countries with high population densities, Thailand has put enormous pressure on its ecosystems. Natural forest cover now makes up about 32% of the kingdom’s land area as compared to 70% some 50 years ago. The rapid depletion of the country’s forests coincided with the modern era’s shift toward industrialisation, urbanisation and commercial logging. Although these statistics are alarming, forest loss has slowed since the turn of the millennium to about 0.2% per year according to statistics published by the World Bank in 2008.
In response to environmental degradation, the Thai government has created a large number of protected areas since the 1970s and set a goal of 40% forest cover by the middle of this century. In 1989 all logging was banned in Thailand following a disaster the year before in which hundreds of tonnes of cut timber washed down deforested slopes in Surat Thani Province, burying villages and killing more than a hundred people. It is now illegal to sell timber felled in the country, but unfortunately this law merely sent Thai logging companies into neighbouring countries where there is lax enforcement of environmental laws.
Seasonal flooding is a common natural disaster in Thailand, but 2006 was an exceptionally destructive year, especially in Nan Province, which experienced its worst occurrence in 40 years after days of incessant rains. Monsoon rains during this period caused flooding in 46 provinces in northern and central Thailand. Another flood on the Mekong in August 2008 inundated more than 2200 villages and was considered the worst in a century for some areas.
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YOU CALL THIS A PARK?
Why do some Thai national parks look more like tourist resorts? To be perfectly honest, the government’s commitment to enforcement of environmental protection is more firm on paper than practice. Back when forests were natural resources not natural treasures, the Royal Forest Department (RFD) managed the profitable teak concessions. How does a government replace a money-making venture like logging with a money-losing venture like conservation? A sizeable enforcement budget would be a good start, but rarely did the necessary funds materialise to bar moneyed interests from operating surreptitiously in public lands. The conflict between paper legislation and economic realities became most acute in the late 1990s after the Asian currency crisis crippled the RFD’s enforcement budget.
Another loophole arises around land ownership and land use: many of Thailand’s parks contain local communities, in some cases marginalised ethnic minorities, subsistence farmers or fisherfolk, whose presence pre-dates the area’s park status. Villagers can be disrespectful of forest-protection rules that conflict with traditional practices like slash-and-burn agriculture