Illusion of fairness
Re: "Residents slam survey result on Thailand's Thap Lan National Park", (BP, July 15) & "'Save Thap Lan' campaign just a ruse", (Opinion, July 12).
As the Post's well-informed columnist Sanitsuda Ekachai explains in her excellent opinion piece "'Save Thap Lan' campaign just a ruse", the online survey done by that highly interested party, the Department of National Parks, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation (DNP) is as flawed as is that department's ill-considered plan to maintain another traditional area of unjust state control over people.
The way the survey was done makes it worthless. No one expects, no one should suspect, a self-selecting group to be unbiased. It is too unsurprising that a Thai government department would think that conducting such a survey might be of some worth.
The DNP should apologise for conducting such a silly survey, and admit that they might be seriously in the wrong to oppose the proposal to turn a chunk of the national park into farmland that its traditional residents have a legally protected right to use. Putting the adjective "national" in front of a noun does not magically confer on the thing that noun phrase points to any magical right to override considerations of what is just. No adjective has that magical power; however, often state authorities wielding bad law presume it.
Ruining Koh Chang
Re: "Koh Chang bridge 'likely to cost B10bn'", (BP, July 17).
I read the proposal to build a bridge to Koh Chang with utter dismay.
Starting with the enormous financial and environmental cost, it is a disaster in the making. I have been a regular visitor to this once tranquil, pristine and most beautiful island for over 25 years.
In that time, the island has been overrun by hordes of tourists, uncontrolled building, beach encroachment by holiday resorts and above all, rubbish. Plus, the dangerous macaque monkeys!
Koh Chang, like most Thai islands does not have a proper waste disposal structure. There are many enormous heaps of rubbish that are hidden in the once pristine forest. The beaches are polluted.
The road and transport infrastructure is woefully inadequate, with deadly extremely narrow roads with numerous hairpin bends, upon which there are countless accidents, many fatal, every year, never reported in the press.
Even the proposed terminal at Koh Chang Hospital is ridiculous as it is so far from the main beaches and would exacerbate the traffic problem even more.
Please scrap the plan to build the bridge to Koh Chang. Otherwise, it will sink under the tourist invasion and become rubbish like Venice and Barcelona!
Alcatraz existence
Re: "Why Bua Noi needs a sanctuary", (Opinion, July 17).
Bua Noi's suffering has already been well covered by PostBag correspondents over time.
Pata Department Store has shown indifference as she is a big money-maker for the paying rubberneckers; indeed, it has boasted about her air-conditioned comfort, which is totally alien to her natural environment.
Although I, too, advocated a return to a sanctuary earlier, it appears to be too late now and ill-advised at her advanced age during years of isolation in a cell.
Unless there is appropriate intervention by the highly esteemed Sir David Attenborough or Dame Jane Goodall, it seems she is lamentably doomed to watching TV (wistfully at the nature programme images and baffled or horrified otherwise) in her Alcatraz existence until nature, which is overlooking its duty in her case, takes its ultimate course.