Bangkok Post Nov 12, 1998 - What it all boils down to is greed

The Bangkok Post Thursday Nov. 12 1998

Commentary
by Sanitsuda Ekachai

What it all boils down to is greed

The truth often hurts. And the sad truth is our country is governed by greed. Also the grand illusion of "face". That's why the government backs the big money of Hollywood against our own laws.

Under the law, no one can remove even a single twig or pebble from a national park. But with money being the real law of the land, the national park law applies only to the poor as a tool for evicting them from the forests.

But if you're rich, life's a party. Welcome the bulldozers. Do whatever you please. Money comes first.

This is a pimp mentality.

In dumping principle and dignity in exchange for money, the authorities are impotent against the rich resort owners or tree farm investors who encroach on national parks.

In the pursuit of money, the forestry bosses plan to open access even wider to national parks for commercial investment even though these plans violate the law and the constitutional rights of local people over natural resources management.

It's no surprise, therefore, that the government has allowed 20th Century Fox to film The Beach in Krabi's Phi Phi National Park and has endorsed the removal of indigenous plants from Maya Beach so the crew can create a coconut palm-fringed shoreline in keeping with the Hollywood idea of a paradise island.

Listen to the authorities' justifications: Money. Big money. A 500-million-baht injection into the economy. And face. The film will make Phi Phi world famous, bringing in even more tourism money.

While discarding the national park law in the bin, the authorities speak in unison: The destruction to the environment caused by the shooting at Phi Phi is worth it.

Worth what? Can we put a monetary value on what actually is priceless? Even if we were so arrogant, who would have the right to put a price tag on them? Who determines how much? Who gets the dough? And who foots the bills for the environmental degradation that follows?

The fact is Phi Phi is already well-known and plagued with environmental problems caused by over-tourism. To save Phi Phi, it's necessary to limit the visitors there to its carrying capacity. The extra tourists expected by the showing of The Beach will only accelerate Phi Phi's death. But who cares? When you operate in a pimp mode, you just squeeze your money cow to the very last drop.

I didn't get the pimp analogy out of thin air. At the height of the land speculation boom, a Krabi tycoon compared his beautiful, quiet town to a virgin. He said it would attract many customers if Krabi took the tourism route. The guy is now a prominent politician who is giving full backing to the filming of The Beach.

The problem is he's not alone. This greed is actually the ultimate principle of our ruling elite.

In chasing economic development, our bureaucrats and politicians see nature as just a money maker. So they steal the forests, seas and rivers from the people and sell them to investors at the cost of the environment and the villagers' livelihoods.

This greed allows the authorities to permit big trawlers to sweep clean our coastal waters at the cost of marine ecology and small fishermen's survival.

It allows paper factories to pollute the rivers and kill off the fish, dam construction to impoverish villagers, tree farms to plunder forest biodiversity, and investors to exploit the poor as cheap labour.

The Beach crew will soon leave. But we're stuck with the authorities intent on selling the Thai people's dignity and on exploiting their money cow until it drops dead.

* Sanitsuda Ekachai is Assistant Editor, Bangkok Post. sanitsuda@bangkokpost.net