SURIN — Villagers are campaigning to expose a gang that includes officials and community leaders who they claim are making money by encroaching on their community forest.
Photos by Nopparat Kingkaew
The residents on Saturday went public with their allegations, staging a media tour of the area, after their earlier complaints were ignored by government officials.
The Chalerm Phra Kiat Community Forest, covering 241 rai of land near the Huay Raside Reservoir in tambon Sawai in Muang district, was established to celebrate the 51st anniversary of His Majesty the King's accession to the throne.
The villagers accused some local authorities and community leaders of conspiring to fell a large number of trees in the forest and making about 1.5 million baht from selling them.
They say the group included a deputy district chief, a former president of the Sawai Tambon Administration Organisation and the head of Moo 4 village (Ban Sawai).
The group allegedly split the money resulting from illegally trespassing on state land. They then used backhoes to remove the stumps of the felled trees and burned them elsewhere to cover up what had happened.
The villagers said they had already filed complaints with the Muang Surin district chief, the Surin governor and the Ombudsman but no action had been taken to solve the problem.
A group of reporters and photographers on Saturday toured the site with residents of Moo 4 led by Luang Phor Panya Wuthisoonthorn, the abbot of Wat Sang Burapa in tambon Sawai and former ecclesiastical district governor of Muang Surin.
Reporters found many trees along the forest trail had been downed and the forest's condition arid, not befitting a site established to honour His Majesty.
The inspection also found traces of burning of felled trees and the erection of fences to demarcate property lines despite the fact that it is public land.
The villagers said they had noticed that several local influential figures, government officials and neighbours whom they suspected of involvement in the racket had bought new pickup trucks, raising suspicions about how many people took part in the invasion.
Banjong Butrsood, a Sawai villager, said the trespassers started to invade the forest last year. Residents have been lodging complaints ever since with authorities in the province and in Bangkok but no one had taken any action.
Thong Pasook, a former head of Moo 4 village, said there were almost no trees left in the encroached forest covering 241 rai. The intruders cut most of the eucalyptus and big trees of other species for sale. No authorities stopped them, he added.
Mr Thong said he and other villagers had helped preserve the land to be used as a community forest in 1994 while he was the village headman.
Most of the villagers wanted the land to continue as Chalerm Phrakiat Community Forest and strongly disagreed with exploiting it for commercial gain.
Singha Chobmee, a lawyer for the Democrat Party in Surin, said the villagers filed a petition with leader Abhisit Vejjajiva through the party on June 29.
The party would work with the agencies concerned to indentify and prosecute all people involved in the encroachment, said Mr Singha.
Luang Phor Panya said the forest had collectively belonged to residents of Ban Sawai for decades and was heavily encroached upon in the past four to five months.
He called on the Surin governor or Muang Surin district chief to protect the villagers' rights by not allowing those with political connections to occupy the community forest.
The villagers would continue their protest if they received no response to their complaints, the monk added.
