Environmental protection announcement for 52 Thai islands following encroachment

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Environmental protection announcement for 52 islands following encroachment
By Digital Content



BANGKOK, June 23 -- Thailand's Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment issued an announcement to protect the environment of 52 islands in the Ko Samui and Ko Pha-ngan islands in Surat Thani province after encroachment deteriorated their conditions.

Noppadol Thiyajai, deputy secretary-general of the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning (ONEP) under the ministry, said that expanding tourism affected the environment of many islands in both island groups and severe impacts happened to catchment areas, swamp forests, mangrove forests, beaches and cliffs.

He said that the urbanization law could not be enforced effectively to protect the environment in the affected areas.

Section 45 of the Environmental Quality Preservation and Promotion Act BE 2535 was used to issue a ministerial regulation to protect the environment in seven sub-districts of Ko Samui district and three sub-districts of Ko Phangan district, he said.

The protection covers 52 islands including Koh Samui and the Koh Phangan islands. It took effect on May 31 and will be imposed for five years. The announcement is the eighth of its kind.

Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning Office staff will discuss the regulation with local authorities later this month.

The office prohibits any activities that will change local ecosystems including oil drilling and construction of high rises, hotels and residences on environmentally sensitive small islands. However, the regulation does not have a retroactive effect.

Mr Noppadol added that such protection would be extended to cover roads lined with large rubber trees in Chiang Mai and in Ranong provinces. (MCOT online news)


-- TNA 2014-06-23

[Rooo]

Political post removed.

[Battybird]

Shame it's too late for the airport on Koh Phangan. Still good news otherwise.

[notmyself]

Great

[AngThong]

I wonder..... I guess we'll see in 5 years whether it's more destruction or less. More empty words or something real this time?

[Truroboy]

This will make no difference to planing laws on Samui

We already have to many empty shop houses that will blight our environment for a long time also greed among both Farang and Thais on buildings that will never be filed

More control by the Teesabaan and less Brown envelopes might help

Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[Rimbuman]

Some of these islands were covered with trash (plastic lunch boxes, bags even mattresses and furniture when I visited last year.

How this spun out of control and finally gets some attention, wonder how long this lasts because I don't think they kick out the pigs who caused the problem.

[Bsd]

Shame it's too late for the airport on Koh Phangan. Still good news otherwise.

I guess this means that they cannot develop it past what has already been signed off, so only 16 flights a day, no night flights, no larger planes. That is assuming that they actually finish the airport, there has been no offical news in 9 months, when they said it would open in September, given that I have heard blasting coming from the site in the last 2 weeks that doesn't sound likely.

Overall good news, hopefully this will slow down development a bit and allow the infrastructure to catch up.

[12DrinkMore]

Some of these islands were covered with trash (plastic lunch boxes, bags even mattresses and furniture when I visited last year.

How this spun out of control and finally gets some attention, wonder how long this lasts because I don't think they kick out the pigs who caused the problem.

Unfortunately kicking the indigenous population out of Thailand is not a viable solution.

[Krataiboy]

Too little too late.There's hardly a Thai coastal resort or island that hasn't already been largely destroyed by unfettered - and often illegal - development over the last decade and a half.

I fell in love with this country as a visitor 20 years ago and settled in Hua Hin in 1998 when I retired. In those days the town was an attractive and relatively peaceful place with a sprinkling of domestic and international tourists and masses of charm. Today it has become a noisy, polluted, traffic-jammed city with masses of tourists and absolutely no charm.

Even as I write, Cha Am, where I relocated a decade ago in search of some "Thainess", is rapidly becoming one huge building site as it seeks to compete for customers with the ludicrously-misnamed "Queen of Tranquility" a few miles down the road.

In a few years, no doubt, Cha Am's traditional Thai stalls selling beachware, souvenirs and delicious Thai snacks will have been supplanted by air-conditioned shopping malls, ritzy restaurants and the inevitable rash of Western style fast-food outlets. The quiet roads now enjoyed by walkers and cyclists will be jammed with traffic and every inch of greensward concreted over with high-rise condos and hotels.

A similar fate has long since overtaken once-beautiful and remote islands such as Phuket, Phi Phi and Samui which many long-term tourists to Thailand tell me they can no longer bear to visit, so completely have they been ruined.

Between them, successive Thai governments, central and local planning authorities and the Tourist Authority of Thailand have an awful lot to answer for. I wish the generals luck in saving what is left of a wickedly-squandered natural legacy.

[churchill]

If you want something quieter drive down the road there are hundreds of still undeveloped areas along the gulf coast .

…..and Samui still has many areas that are undeveloped ….

Not easy for a developing economy to turn away tourists and investment to preserve the charm and tranquillity of popular areas and Phuket now seems to me totally overdeveloped , but Samui still has a chance to manage development and so any measures should be welcomed .. I saw mentioned that development would be restricted to 50% of land area rather than the present 40% …. so moving in the right direction.

[Rooo]

If you want something quieter drive down the road there are hundreds of still undeveloped areas along the gulf coast .

…..and Samui still has many areas that are undeveloped ….

Not easy for a developing economy to turn away tourists and investment to preserve the charm and tranquillity of popular areas and Phuket now seems to me totally overdeveloped , but Samui still has a chance to manage development and so any measures should be welcomed .. I saw mentioned that development would be restricted to 50% of land area rather than the present 40% …. so moving in the right direction.

Churchill was the 40 % adhered too? Up on the mountain, getting higher & higher & bigger & bigger.

The one that I heard about a while ago was the condo halt. seems to have come into effect. I heard July one,but this law seems to be May 31. So if it's initiated by the current authority, I will take it more seriously, after seeing what happened on Surin beach in Phuket.

[churchill]

If you want something quieter drive down the road there are hundreds of still undeveloped areas along the gulf coast .

…..and Samui still has many areas that are undeveloped ….

Not easy for a developing economy to turn away tourists and investment to preserve the charm and tranquillity of popular areas and Phuket now seems to me totally overdeveloped , but Samui still has a chance to manage development and so any measures should be welcomed .. I saw mentioned that development would be restricted to 50% of land area rather than the present 40% …. so moving in the right direction.

Churchill was the 40 % adhered too? Up on the mountain, getting higher & higher & bigger & bigger.

The one that I heard about a while ago was the condo halt. seems to have come into effect. I heard July one,but this law seems to be May 31. So if it's initiated by the current authority, I will take it more seriously, after seeing what happened on Surin beach in Phuket.

The 50% was mentioned in the other paper ...

I also heard about a year ago that there was a temporary halt on issuing condo licenses , not sure of the current situation..

40% adhered to , not sure ! but if one is building on a plot of say 1000 sq metres 40 % still gives a large building area and walkways etc are not included … So at the 'W' , for instance ,' I believe ' the villas seem big on a small plot because there are walkways between the rooms & so still conforms to the 40%

I think there will be limits to buildings over 180 m sea level at some stage and I think this will involve building height limits perhaps reducing from the current 12m to 6/8 m over 120 m

I also heard that the building heights currently 12 M from base to roof top will be revised to 12m from base to roof base , so potentially giving a greater height ...

[JimHuaHin]

About time... this programme needs to be extended.