From: amara@wam.umd.edu (Amara Tremongkol Naksathit)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.thai
Subject: Huai Kha Khaeng: THe World Natural Heritage
Date: 10 Jan 93 17:28:37 GMT
Article-I.D.: wam.1993Jan10.172837.25267
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park


	HUAI KHA KHAENG: THE WORLD NATURAL HERITAGE
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	(From Feature Magazine, November,1992:special issue)

	December 9-11, 1991, in the annual meeting of UNESCO, Thung-Yai
-Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary was announced the Natural Property to
the World Heritage List.

	This is really the achievement of Seub Nakasathian.

	1965, surveys in the Huai Kha Khaeng forest found a lot of wildlife,
especially Wild Water Buffalo which has been believed of its extinction some
years before. The Royal Forest Department thus established the forest as a 
wildlife sanctuary in 1972 with an area of 1,631 aquare kilometers.

	1970, during the preparation, the Royal Forest Department gave a
logging concession to the Thai Plywood which covered some periphery of the 
sanctuary. THe grant brought about the problems of intrusion into the 
concession area by villagers and illegal wildlife hunting. However, after 
finding the concession area is the habitats of Wild Water Buffalo and Green
Peafowl, the Department asked some concession area back from the Thai Plywood
and added it to the sanctuary which was expanded then to 2,574.64 square
kilometers in 1986.

	Feeling close to the forests and impressed by their value, Seub
Nakasathien, a researcher of the Royal Forest Department's Wildlife
Conservation Section who had entered to Thung Yai and Huai Kha Khaeng
Wildlife Sanctuaries for his studies on wildlife, began his attempts to
propose this area to be a world heritage.

	However, in 1988, half of the returned concession area was given
back to..
to the Thai Plywood again. Such doing was protested by all academics and 
conservation groups natiowide. Sueb, as a leader, used his studies in the
forest as  a tool in the struggles. But the protests could not change the
decision of the government and the Department. Until in the late year, happened
the tragic flash flood in the South of Thailand which flewdown from the
mountains with a great number of logs and killed hundreds of people. This was
concluded the result from deforestation. The government thus revoked all the
logging concession nationwide in 1989.

	In the late 1989, Seub was appointed the head of Huai Kha Khaeng
Wildlife Sanctuary. He found a lot of problems both from the villagers'
illegal logging in the periphery of the sanctuary and wildlife poaching
for selling horns and fresh to wildlife markets. These unlawful doings
earn the villagers more money than farming and are backed by local capitalists
and authoities. To deal with the animal poaching was very intense and
dangerous; 4 rangers were killed because theyhad to fight against the hunters
with worse arms.

	Seub tried to search financial supports for his staff's welfare and
morale. At the same time he speeded up his compilation of information about
Thung Yai and Huai Kha Khaeng so that they be designated as the world's
heritage because if this was successful, everybody would turn to be interested
in protecting wildlife increasingly. These two plans were his main hope and
intention indeed.

	He found that the solutions for Huai Kha Khaeng were to fix a buffer
zone, 5 kilometers from the forest boundary, and to evacuate the villagers.
The people would be allowed to use the benefits from the forest only in the
buffer zone and their liveihood should be developed in order not to need to 
hunt wild animals. But he did not receive any cooperation from other officials,
neither in the high nor local levels. He, in turn, was blamed by higher-rank
political officials that he had worked unenough.

	Seub despaired of the government's working system. Two more of his
fellows were injured by shot. He thought he had to be responsible for his
staffs' and wild animals' life. 

	Seub made suicide on September 1, 1990.

	His death has turned all people's attention to the problems of Huai 
Kha Khaeng. The buffer zone plan has been implemented. The ranger teams have
more arms and increase in number. Moreover, Seub Nakasathien Foundation was 
established for the welfare, as he hoped.

	Importantly, Seub's final dream came true when Thung Yai and Huai Kha
Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary was designated as the world heritage.

	Sueb is a true devoter to wildlife research and conservation.
	
	One of his friends once asked him what he wanted to do, 
	" To research Wild Water Buffalo," he said.
 
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