OPINION

Trimming off the top

I suspect there is more at play than mere incompetence with regard to the excessive "pruning" of Bangkok's urban trees (BP, April 27). At least some of the trees in question are Burma padauk (known in Thailand as pradu, and scientifically as Pterocarpus macrocarpus).

The beautiful reddish-brown wood of this species is highly valued by furniture and cabinet makers, but is now very difficult to acquire. While trade of pradu wood is restricted in many countries as a measure to conserve the threatened species, the wood is still sold on the black market.

Prices of purportedly legal pradu timber offered online range as high as US$5,000 (162,000 baht) for one cubic metre.

Even small pieces of pradu wood -- as would have been obtained from the top portions of the trees cut along Witthayu Road -- are extremely valuable. It warrants further investigation to determine where the "trimmings" ended up. Most likely, not in a landfill or burned.

Of course, when the remaining base portions of these trees inevitably die, greedy individuals will happily return to remove the even more valuable lower trunks for easy money.

The Tourism and Sport Ministry push to shift the focus of Thai tourism to attract "quality" (wealthy) visitors and focus on quality over quantity is doomed to failure. This type of misguided thinking is rampant in a government of comprised of a military mindset.

Anyone with business acumen knows that your service and product must meet the needs of the consumer, not the other way around. For the ministry to make such a pronouncement, where is the research to support such a transition?

Sure, wealthy elites have more money to spend then us peasantry, but there are not enough of them to sustain the tourist industry. They are only "1%" of the population and there are plenty of luxury vacation spots in the world.

Thailand's success at tourism was based on affordability and being seen as exotic by travellers with a friendly culture. In my lifetime, it seems the "Land of Smiles" has become the "Land of Grimaces". Who would want to come to a place rife with pollution, graft and tourist scams for a vacation? There is no way to ensure "disease-free" tourism in a country where there is no competent universal healthcare. Whoever came up with this scheme does not understand science or business. The first time someone gets "sick", the entire project is destroyed through negative PR and false advertising.

A stranded young Russian man named Ivan is earning room and board at a local temple in Surat Thani by helping out and making himself useful (BP, April 30). Bravo to this young man, and bravo to the abbot for allowing Ivan to stay. The abbot is a genuine, compassionate person, a true Buddhist. It would perhaps be an idea worth exploring by other abbots in other temples across Thailand. Most temples are short of monks and short of help. What an ideal way to get a helping hand by offering refuge to stranded male travellers who have nowhere to go, and no money to support themselves.