Resort faces charges over dead corals

[rooster59]

Resort faces charges over dead corals

By The Phuket News

 

Management at the resort will face charges for having the dead corals on the property, the DMRC Phuket office said. Photo: DMCR
 

PHUKET: Senior management at a resort on Koh Racha Yai will face a charge of having coral illegally on the resort premises and for damaging reefs, the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources (DMCR) Phuket office has confirmed.
 

The news follows an inspection on Koh Racha, south of Phuket, on Thursday (Jan 24), Nares Choopueng of the DMCR Phuket office explained to The Phuket News.

 

The inspection team comprised officers from the DMCR Phuket office, Royal Thai Navy personnel and the Chalong Police, he said.

Full story: https://www.thephuketnews.com/resort-faces-charges-over-dead-corals-70167.php#4utYvvYxBB2eFYIm.97

 

-- © Copyright Phuket News 2019-01-26

[worgeordie]

The big hair lady,too greedy to buy rocks to fill in the waterway,

uses Coral !.

regards worgeordie

[hansgruber]

6 hours ago, worgeordie said:

The big hair lady,too greedy to buy rocks to fill in the waterway,

uses Coral !.

regards worgeordie

Big hair = I have money to get my hair done like this everyday. 

It's the old fashioned way to show their "importance" in society. 

She will be dropping names of people in power she knows non stop I can assure you. 

Most likely this will disappear. 

[ChipButty]

5 hours ago, hansgruber said:

Big hair = I have money to get my hair done like this everyday. 

It's the old fashioned way to show their "importance" in society. 

She will be dropping names of people in power she knows non stop I can assure you. 

Most likely this will disappear. 

People who own the hotel have loads of power

[RichardColeman]

6 hours ago, hansgruber said:

Big hair = I have money to get my hair done like this everyday. 

It could go in and out of a box at night !

[Golden Triangle]

“The manager of Rayaburi Resort ordered its workers to collect dead corals from Siam Beach to fill and make the canal shallow and narrow.

 

Sorry if I'm being a bit thick here but, if the coral was already dead and on the beach what actual harm are they causing the reef ? Or is there a law about picking up stuff on the beach ? An honest question as I am confused.

[fruitman]

10 hours ago, hansgruber said:

Big hair = I have money to get my hair done like this everyday. 

It's the old fashioned way to show their "importance" in society. 

She will be dropping names of people in power she knows non stop I can assure you. 

Most likely this will disappear. 

Ones like that also jump the queue, don't stop for anyone in their Benz....pay the security 20 baht to drag parked motocycles away so she can park....i don't like them.

[stevenl]

3 hours ago, Golden Triangle said:

“The manager of Rayaburi Resort ordered its workers to collect dead corals from Siam Beach to fill and make the canal shallow and narrow.

 

Sorry if I'm being a bit thick here but, if the coral was already dead and on the beach what actual harm are they causing the reef ? Or is there a law about picking up stuff on the beach ? An honest question as I am confused.

Both dead and alive corals are protected.

 

And you think they can determine corals to be dead or alive?

[richard_smith237]

3 hours ago, Golden Triangle said:

“The manager of Rayaburi Resort ordered its workers to collect dead corals from Siam Beach to fill and make the canal shallow and narrow.

 

Sorry if I'm being a bit thick here but, if the coral was already dead and on the beach what actual harm are they causing the reef ? Or is there a law about picking up stuff on the beach ? An honest question as I am confused.

 

I'm not sure... However, when departing from our long weekend in Koh Samet (which is a national park) we were advised by the resort staff to hide the Jar of Sand and shells which  my 5 year old Son had collected for his 'show & tell' presentation at School.... We were told that if the Park Officials saw the jar of sand and if they decided to we could be charged (with removal of sand from a National Park) and that in the past tourists had been charged. The staff mentioned excessive fines (~50,000baht !)... 

 

Having lived here for 20 years I've never heard of anything so daft, but having lived here for 20years I believed the staff... we hid the jar !

 

So.. is there a law about picking stuff up on a Beach?... I think there may be a law about removing live coral etc and this can be enforced with a degree of faux outrage, a dollop of hypocrisy and an huge does of 'targeting' to strip a tourist of their cash.

 

In this case, they've targeted a resort owner who has possibly / probably fallen out of terms with someone of local importance / power.

 

 

 

Edited January 27, 2019 by richard_smith237

[scorecard]

1 hour ago, richard_smith237 said:

 

I'm not sure... However, when departing from our long weekend in Koh Samet (which is a national park) we were advised by the resort staff to hide the Jar of Sand and shells which  my 5 year old Son had collected for his 'show & tell' presentation at School.... We were told that if the Park Officials saw the jar of sand and if they decided to we could be charged (with removal of sand from a National Park) and that in the past tourists had been charged. The staff mentioned excessive fines (~50,000baht !)... 

 

Having lived here for 20 years I've never heard of anything so daft, but having lived here for 20years I believed the staff... we hid the jar !

 

So.. is there a law about picking stuff up on a Beach?... I think there may be a law about removing live coral etc and this can be enforced with a degree of faux outrage, a dollop of hypocrisy and an huge does of 'targeting' to strip a tourist of their cash.

 

In this case, they've targeted a resort owner who has possibly / probably fallen out of terms with someone of local importance / power.

 

 

 

 

Or targetting a resort owner who feels entitled to make her owns rules and ignore the inconvenient law. 

 

[richard_smith237]

2 minutes ago, scorecard said:

 

Or targetting a resort owner who feels entitled to make her owns rules and ignore the inconvenient law. 

 

 

Well yes... there's that as well....  usually someone who's been permitted to follow their own rules and ignore an inconvenient law for a 'nominal fee' to whoever is in a position of power to decide upon enforcement, or not.... 

 

But... if this hotel owner is being targeted for having dead coral on her property, I'd guess that there is not much else they can 'get her' for....  (if there actually is something more nefarious going on in the first places with this charge)

[scorecard]

20 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

 

Well yes... there's that as well....  usually someone who's been permitted to follow their own rules and ignore an inconvenient law for a 'nominal fee' to whoever is in a position of power to decide upon enforcement, or not.... 

 

But... if this hotel owner is being targeted for having dead coral on her property, I'd guess that there is not much else they can 'get her' for....  (if there actually is something more nefarious going on in the first places with this charge)

Well have you not noticed the numerous similar incidents on TV threads in the last few months and years before.

 

Many locals and tourists fined for removing corals etc.

 

 

 

[richard_smith237]

3 minutes ago, scorecard said:

26 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

 

Well yes... there's that as well....  usually someone who's been permitted to follow their own rules and ignore an inconvenient law for a 'nominal fee' to whoever is in a position of power to decide upon enforcement, or not.... 

 

But... if this hotel owner is being targeted for having dead coral on her property, I'd guess that there is not much else they can 'get her' for....  (if there actually is something more nefarious going on in the first places with this charge)

Well have you not noticed the numerous similar incidents on TV threads in the last few months and years before.

 

Many locals and tourists fined for removing corals etc.

 

I hadn't.... Not as of November 2018 anyway....  I have noticed a couple of threads on this in 2019 already... Tourists being targeted... a bit like the foreigners on Sukhumvit being targeted when they  drop their cigarettes...  

 

This is the first case I've heard of involving a Thai. 

 

 

[scorecard]

29 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

 

Well yes... there's that as well....  usually someone who's been permitted to follow their own rules and ignore an inconvenient law for a 'nominal fee' to whoever is in a position of power to decide upon enforcement, or not.... 

 

But... if this hotel owner is being targeted for having dead coral on her property, I'd guess that there is not much else they can 'get her' for....  (if there actually is something more nefarious going on in the first places with this charge)

 

I guess your point is that maybe she's been encouraged in the past by officials who make it known they will look the other way for a handful of cash. Of course that happens and shouldn't be happening.

 

But perhaps it's been the other way around, there are plenty of incidents in many different scenarios of greedy ruthless afraid of nobody resort operators / factory owners and etc etc., intimidating officials by having cars, cash etc., delivered leaving the officers afraid to return the car / cash etc. This does happen.  

 

 

Edited January 27, 2019 by scorecard

[Golden Triangle]

Many many moons ago I and a now divorced wife had our honeymoon in the Gambia, we used to walk on the beach hand in hand and looking lovingly into each others eyes............okay that's enough,

 

We did however bring back stuff washed up on the beach, stuff like dead coral and parts of Nautilus shells, no one said it was illegal, that's why I don't get the Thai stance on this, protect live coral by all means, but dead stuff washed up on the beach - they gotta be kidding.

[sometimewoodworker]

8 hours ago, Golden Triangle said:

We did however bring back stuff washed up on the beach, stuff like dead coral and parts of Nautilus shells, no one said it was illegal, that's why I don't get the Thai stance on this, protect live coral by all means, but dead stuff washed up on the beach - they gotta be kidding.

There certainly are good reasons not to take things like coral and rocks from the beaches, including erosion.

 

One person talking one piece of coral certainly makes no difference or problem but then multiply that by one hundred (a very low figure for many beaches) per day and you quickly get to 36,500 pieces of coral per year, an amount that beaches cannot support so people start buying "dead" coral harvested from the reefs and killed the day or week before.

 

Go on to hotels doing the same and you rapidly have an extremely bad effort the ecosystem, killing the things that bring tourists to the area in the first place.

 

So do you now understand exactly why the law has to protect all coral dead and alive? It is exactly the same as the laws banning all trade in ivory, for virtually the same reasons.

[Old Croc]

This seems a little more serious than the Russian woman caught feeding bread crumbs to the fish a couple of years ago. She was locked up for two days because she couldn't raise the bail of 100,000 baht.

She was eventually fined 1,000 baht.

I'm sure the big haired lady won't cop the same treatment.

[stevenl]

10 hours ago, Golden Triangle said:

Many many moons ago I and a now divorced wife had our honeymoon in the Gambia, we used to walk on the beach hand in hand and looking lovingly into each others eyes............okay that's enough,

 

We did however bring back stuff washed up on the beach, stuff like dead coral and parts of Nautilus shells, no one said it was illegal, that's why I don't get the Thai stance on this, protect live coral by all means, but dead stuff washed up on the beach - they gotta be kidding.

So many years ago you did something in Gambia, and you're surprised it is illegal now many tears later in Thailand.