The forest encroachment saga involving Deputy Education Minister Kanokwan Vilawan, her father and a group of people in Khao Yai National Park shows double standards being practised by state authorities regarding forest protection policy and implementation.
The National Anti-Corruption Commission earlier this week found there were sufficient grounds for legal action against the politician, her father Soonthorn Vilawan who is head of the Prachin Buri Provincial Administration Organisation, and a group of individuals who were found to have illegally occupied at least 150 rai of forest land in a part of Khao Yai National Park in Prachin Buri.
Apart from Ms Kanokwan and her alleged accomplices, there are reports that some local leaders and influential persons have also encroached upon a vast area of park land in Prachin Buri and also Nakhon Nayok.
Some reportedly managed to get land documents for the illegitimately obtained property.
Initial investigations suggest Ms Kanokwan and her father occupied the land plots back in the early 2000s. Ms Kanokwan insisted she is innocent until proven guilty in court but her father now faces an arrest warrant after he failed to appear in court last week.
The national park, as demonstrated on 2017 Google Earth, looked lush and healthy but aerial photos taken in 2019 show a large part of the area as occupied.
It's apparent that legal action against the Khao Yai encroachers was undertaken at a snail's pace with at least one charge against Mr Sunthorn, for making state officials breach the law, expiring this week.
During a media interview on June 14, Chaiwat Limlikit-aksorn, former head of the forest protection task force, conceded the authorities have been slow in tackling encroachment in the area as they have to verify ownership of dwellers in accordance with a cabinet resolution dated June 30, 1998, which spares from eviction people who had lived in -- and made use of -- forest land before the area was designated as a forest reserve or national park.
While giving forest occupants in Khao Yai National Park a chance to prove their ownership as per the resolution, the government has never applied such generous treatment in other forest cases, particularly the Karen forest dwellers in Bang Kloi, of Kaeng Krachan National Park in Phetchaburi.
Mr Chaiwat, in particular, was known for his heavy-handedness in dealing with Bang Kloi villagers. In 2011, he evicted the Karen community from their ancestral land in a brutal operation which saw their huts and rice barns burned down.
He was also charged with murdering Karen activist Porlajee "Billy" Rakchongcharoen in 2014 but was acquitted due to a lack of evidence.
Even though academics and conservationists recognise the Karen rotational farming method as compatible with nature, the Karen have been treated badly by state authorities who stiffly maintain their racial prejudice.
Last year, the government took swift action against a group of Bang Kloi villagers who tried to abandon a barren relocation site and return to their ancestral land.
Mr Chaiwat was eventually dismissed from duty for his role in the Bang Kloi violence but forest injustice continues, as the state refuses to accept historical evidence that the ethnic minority villagers have lived in the area for more than a hundred years, long before all types of forest laws came into effect.
Such blatant double standards, compared to the Khao Yai case, warrant serious investigation.
