National Park, Wildlife And Plant Conservation Department Will Merge With Royal Forest Department

[Jai Dee]

National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department will merge with Royal Forest Department

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment is preparing to merge the National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department and the Royal Forest Department in order to streamline works.

Mr. Pittipong Phungboon Na Ayutthaya (ปีติพงศ์ พึ่งบุญ ณ อยุธยา), the Permanent Secretary of the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry, revealed that the new entity would operate under the name "the Royal Forest Department", in order to heed to the will of King Chulalongkorn who first established the Forest department to protect the nation's forests. The heads of both departments under the ministry have already signed the merger in May.

The merger comes in an attempt to fix overlapping of works by the two departments.

Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Yongyut Tiyapairat (ยงยุทธ ติยะไพรัช) said he has already received documents on the matter and these will be forwarded to the Office of the Civil Service Commission and the Office of the Public Sector Development Commission for their inspection, before being presented to the Cabinet for further approval.

Source: Thai National News Bureau Public Relations Department - 14 June 2006

[penzman]

The "good" people at the National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department haven't had the best performance ratings for a long time. I think this is a move to eradicate corruption by having them working for the Royal Forest Department instead.

[Galong]

This is a wonderful move. Now I will only have one department ignore me when I send photos of poachers and people trashing the national parks.

[Johpa]

The "good" people at the National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department haven't had the best performance ratings for a long time. I think this is a move to eradicate corruption by having the working for the Royal Forest Department instead.

Me fears, Khun Penzman, that the pot doth call the kettle black. In comparison to the Royal Forestry Department, the Parks Department are a bunch of pansies. What has happened here is that the Forestry Department officials were able to buy out the Parks people and thus further increase their share of the pie. With dwindling forest reserves they had to make some sort of strategic business move to maintain their incomes over the long term.