Parliament, The Land Committee will discuss the drama of ‘Thap Lan’ tomorrow, pointing out that there are 3 groups of people living in the overlapping area. Don’t generalize it as a national park. Insist that people who lived before the national park area was announced in 1981 must receive the rights. As for the Sor Por Kor area, it must be checked whether it is actually used for agriculture or not.
Mr. Poonsak Chanchampi, MP of the Move Forward Party and Chairman of the Committee on Land, Natural Resources and Environment, spoke about the drama of cutting off 265,000 rai of Thap Lan National Park and the backlash that the information released was not true. What is the Move Forward Party’s view on this matter? The information still needs to be verified and inspected. The Land Committee will include this matter in the agenda on July 10 to request a resolution from the meeting to include the Thap Lan forest case for consideration on July 17. The committee meeting will consider information from various relevan
t departments, including the National Park Department, Seub Nakhasathien Foundation, ALRO, or other relevant agencies, to clarify the matter for society and will inform the public of the results of the consideration.
When asked what the Move Forward Party thinks about this issue in principle, Mr. Poonsak said that he thinks that in managing forest areas, especially in the Tap Lan National Park area, we have to look at each context differently. In the Tap Lan area, there are three groups of people who overlap in this area. The first group is people who were there before the park area was announced in 1981. The second group is people who received the Sor Por Kor and were allowed to farm in the Sor Por Kor area. The third group is people who came after the park area was announced and caused lawsuits. As far as we know, there are more than 400 cases that the Department of National Parks has sued people who encroached on the area.
Mr. Poonsak continued that we must proceed with each of these three groups separat
ely, not lumping everything together and announcing all the national park areas because if we include all of them, the first group of people will lose their rights. We must accept that the rights of the people who were there before the forest area must be proven, and proving this right requires a process, which may be slow, but I think it is worthwhile for the people who have been waiting for this right since 1981 until now, which is more than 40 years, and they should have the same rights. As for the group of people who received the ALRO, I think we must proceed accordingly because the government agency, the ALRO, is the one who issued the title deeds to them. As for the last group that is being prosecuted, I think we must let it go through the court process and must expedite the consideration because it will affect the announcement of the One Map.
Some groups have reported that there may be capital groups that will benefit from the revocation of the Tap Lan National Park area, Mr. Poonsak said that the ter
m capital groups that will benefit, he thinks that we have to look at the 3 groups above, which group is at risk of capital groups coming to benefit. If we look at the first group, we have to accept that the verification of rights is a step that must be carried out. Whether the verification of rights will be the same group of villagers or if there is a change of ownership, we think that it must be verified again. As for the ALRO group, he thinks that there should not be a problem because they are the group that has already received the title deed. However, the matter of continuously verifying whether or not they are actually engaged in agriculture is a matter for the ALRO to proceed with. As for the last group, it is certain that the matter is in the court process, so we have to wait for the court to proceed with it.
Source: Thai News Agency