Loggers Have Turned to Cutting Thailand Forests
1/4/98
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Headline: Loggers Have Turned to Cutting Thailand Forests
Source: Bangkok Post
Date: 1/4/98
Authors: Nauvarat Suksamran
Mae Hong Son.
Copyright: The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd. All rights reserved 1997
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Fighting a losing battle
Loggers have turned to forests in Thailand
Although strong in spirit, rangers are fighting
a losing battle to protect Salween National Park
and Wildlife Sanctuary from illegal loggers.
There is little ill-equipped park keepers can do
to fend off the loggers, who have rich and
influential people behind them.
The lush national park, covering 450,950 rai,
and the wildlife protection zone, which has
546,875 rai, is being targeted by loggers
because fighting between Burmese troops and
minority rebels has intensified in Burma over
the past few years.
Unable to cut trees in the concession areas in
Burma, the loggers have turned to forests in
their own country.
Since there is a logging ban in Thailand, the
logs have to be moved to the Burmese border to
receive "official" seals and certificates of
origin to show that the trees were chopped in
Burma.
Game wardens deny they have turned a blind eye
to the activities but calls to supervisors to
help support campaigns to stop forest
destruction have fallen on deaf ears.
Ministers inspected the national park twice last
year but no concrete action was taken. The media
has also paid scant attention to the subject.
It was only recently that the logging made
headlines when 200-1,000 illegally-cut logs were
found floating in several tributaries of the
127km Salween River. Most were tied together in
readiness to be floated to Burma.
Park officials, however, were not rewarded.
Instead, they faced an investigation into their
alleged negligence in protecting the forests.
A ranger complained that the law gave forest
protection units little room to act. He said his
unit could not pull the logs from the streams
because the Wildlife Protection and Conservation
Act bans the removal of logs from national parks
and wildlife sanctuaries.
The rangers were also no match for the armed
rebel forces which protected the illegal
loggers.
All units were low on staff, vehicles, petrol
and patrol boats as well as back-up forces.
Since the officials could do nothing, the logs
found last year had since disappeared.
"We were like a dog that could only bark but not
bite," the ranger said.
Border clashes caused Thai loggers to leave
Burma and it was now safer and cheaper to cut
trees in Thailand.
The source said logging operators would hire
Karen refugees to fell trees in Salween National
Park and game reserve.
Some would be processed in the forests or the
bark would be stripped off to make them look
like processed logs, which were legally allowed
to be shipped in.
The timber would then be hauled by elephants to
the Salween River before being floated to Burma
under heavy guard.
After the logs were given Burmese certification
they would be brought back into Thailand via Ban
Mae Sam Laeb in Mae Hong Son's Sob Moei district
and from there would be taken to saw mills in
Mae Sariang.
The estimated cost for each logging operation
was 30,000 baht, excluding bribes paid to
government officials.
Corruption and betrayal are common. A C-5
forestry official in Mae Sariang, said to have
connections with the illegal loggers, had
vanished and eight others were investigated for
extortion. A junior policeman was dismissed for
helping the loggers.
Milling logs is a lucrative business in Mae Hong
Son. In 1995 and 1996 alone, the provincial
commerce office approved 10 applications for the
setting up of sawmills. A number of unlicensed
sawmills are also operating along the
Thai-Burmese border.
Deputy police chief Salang Bunnag, who oversees
campaigns against the destruction of natural
resources, said the logs seized from the Salween
River were all cut in Thailand.
But Paijit Wongvibul, the Mae Sariang forestry
chief, argued that the wood brought in through
Ban Mae Sam Laeb had been produced in Burma.
A suppression centre against illegal logging set
up early last year is now dealing with 21
illegal logging cases after having confiscated
1,140 teak logs in the Salween National Park and
546 in the Salween Wildlife Sanctuary.
As the logs could not be removed, the officials
had marked them.
Shortly afterwards those logs disappeared but
were later imported "legally" into Thailand by
authorised firms.
The source said many companies had asked the
provincial administration to open temporary
checkpoints at several passes in Mae Sariang,
Sob Moei, Khun Yuam and Muang districts to help
get the logs out of Burma.
However, these routes would also cut into the
Salween and Mae Pai national parks, he said.
Permission for log imports, rather than
processed wood imports, has not yet been granted
as security agencies are worried that wood
brought in might have been cut in Thai forests.
Pol Gen Salang supported the closure of the
border passes. He also suggested that the Forest
Industry Organisation leave dead trees found in
the forests there for five years before felling
them.
This is to prevent loggers from "killing" the
trees.
Pol Gen Salang's advice, however, may go
unheeded considering his fading role following
the collapse of the Chavalit Yongchaiyudh
government.
The source said news about log seizures might
stop illegal operations for a short while but it
would soon resurface.
Pushing minority refugees back to Burma had also
been suggested as a way of tackling the problem.