For land invasion, police search resorts in Kanchanaburi

Police conducted a raid on four resorts in the western province yesterday because they were encroaching on both forest land and property belonging to Thailand’s energy generating authority. The original resort, which was owned by EGAT and featured 20 raft huts in addition to 7 buildings, was situated close to the dam. It is reported that the resort illegally expanded over about 6 rai of EGAT land. According to police chief Pongpetch Ketsupa, the buildings and raft homes were built without a license from the municipality. After Thai media reported witnessing trucks and construction machinery mining earth on a hill in Kamala, a town in Phuket, authorities have forbidden any further excavation on the location.

The police conducted hotel raids close to a dam in the Sri Sawat area. A Nor Sor 3 land title, which allows landowners to build on land they do not wholly control, was used to build the resort. A huge land invasion event took place in Phuket’s Kamala Hills last month.
Thailand’s tourism industry has once more affected the nation’s natural ecosystem, this time in Kanchanaburi.
He stated that the investigating team would bring the case to the National Anti-Corruption Commission. Land that has been encroached upon has already been taken. Local police are investigating the resorts’ land invasion with environmental officers in order to make more arrests and pursue legal action. Four employees of the second resort were detained by police for removing EGAT’s land for construction by force. Additionally arrested was their employer. The third resort had cleared a wild area along the dam to create a road and a building. The resort, according to Pongpetch, took up about 1 rai of land (about 1600 metres). By the fourth resort, about 5 rai of the forest reserve area had been cleared.