Subject: Khao Sam Roi Yod resort

The Nation

Monday, Dec 9, 1996:

New resort 'poses threat' to wildlife

   By NANTIYA TANGWISUTIJIT

       A NEW beachfront property and resort adjacent to the Khao Sam Roi Yot

   National Park may threaten Thailand's last habitat of some endangered

   birds and the park's ecological system, biologists fear.

   The ownership of the 146-rai property, Riviera Beach, in Prachuab

    Kiri Khan province also remains in doubt.

   Forestry officials said the beach is public land which is looked

   after by the park and has been proposed to be included as part of the

   reserve, while the project's developers claim they have bought Nor

   Sor Sam Kor land rights papers from local villagers.

   Executives of the Diamond Group, which developed the estate, were not

   available for interview yesterday. But its sales department claimed

   the project has obtained certification from the Royal Forestry

   Department (RFD) for property development on Khao Daeng Beach, which

   is about a kilometre from the national park's headquarters and

   outside its boundary.

   Phillip D Round, ornithologist at Mahidol University's Centre for

   Conservation Biology and co-author of ''A Guide to the Birds of

   Thailand", said the development should not be allowed to proceed

   whether it is inside or outside the park, as it would damage one of

   Thailand's least disturbed beach sites.

   He said the beach area supports over 35 species of shore-birds,

   including the endangered Malaysian Plover and Little Tern, as well as

   the globally-threatened Nordmann's Greenshank.

   ''Both the Malaysian Plover and Little Tern nest only on sandy

   beaches. The Khao Daeng Beach in the park could be the last nesting

   ground in Thailand for the Plovers as other beaches from Prachuab,

   Ranong, Samui to Krabi, where I have previously seen them, have been

   heavily disturbed by roads and tourists.

   ''The Little Terns are almost as endangered because they are found

   only on salt fields in Samut Sakhon, other then at Khao Daeng Beach.

   The Nordmann's Greenshank are a globally-threatened species with only

   a few hundred pairs left. In winter, some of them have been found to

   migrate from Eastern Siberia to the beach area," Round said.

   The birds are sensitive creatures who do not get along with

   disturbances from construction work, increasing numbers of people and

   pollution, he added.

   Round said that when he carried out a bird survey at the beach last

   year, before development began, at least eight pairs of Malaysian

   Plovers and 30 pairs of Little Terns were found nesting along two

   kilometres of beachfront.

   ''I and other biologists have long recommended that that the Khao

   Daeng Beach be included as part of the Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park

   to protect the species," he said.

   Round said he has sent a letter to the secretary-general of the

   Office of Environmental Policy and Planning (OEPP) to urge the agency to

   ''take all necessary steps to halt the Riviera Beach development and

   to designate the whole Sam Roi Yot coastline as an environmentally

   sensitive area".

   The OEPP's National Wetland Committee is to have a meeting today to

   address the problem. The Bird Conservation Society of Thailand also

   plans a press conference after the meeting to raise public concern

   about the threat to the park and the species.

   Khao Sam Roi Yot, Thailand's first marine park established in 1966,

   is listed as internationally important in the Wetland Directory of the

   World Conservation Union.

   Dr Sansanee Choowaew, of Mahidol's Faculty of Environmental and

   Resources Studies, said the park covers a large diversity of natural

   vegetation and wildlife from the top of limestone mountains, to

   swamps, to the sea.

   ''These resources are closely and complicatedly related in the same

   ecological system. A slight change in the swamp's salinity, for

   example, may affect the types of vegetation which the fish, birds and

   people feed on.

   ''But biologists still know very little about this natural complexity.

   Therefore, we have to make sure the whole area is kept undisturbed

   for future studies," she explained.

   In her newly-finished report about the park's management plan, she

   suggested demarcation of the park's boundary as an urgent measure to

   prevent further encroachment by shrimp farmers and resort developers.

   She added that the Prachuab Kiri Khan provincial authority will hold

   a meeting this week to discuss the plan.

   As a land-use planner, Sansanee said foreshore areas are usually

   regarded as public property. She said the provincial authorities may

   have to investigate the origins of the Nor Sor Sam Kor documents

   obtained by the resort developers to clarify the status of the land

   at Khao Daeng Beach.

   ''Beachfront areas should be public land which can be accessible by

   the rich and poor alike," she said.

   A source in the Forestry Department insisted that the land at Khao

   Daeng Beach was proposed to be included into the park's area in 1989,

   but the RFD has yet to officially announced its inclusion.

   RFD's Deputy Director General Wattana Kaewkamnerd reportedly visited

   the park over the weekend to look into the conflict.