Showing 1 - 6 of 6
Falling under a relentless dry spell
Spectrum, Piyaporn Wongruang, Published on 09/03/2014
» In his office at Rangsit University, the country’s best-known climate expert, Seree Supratid, is staring at a computer screen intently, his face showing signs of concern.
Road to Dawei paved with anguish
Spectrum, Piyaporn Wongruang, Published on 02/03/2014
» From the Tenasserim mountains which form the Thai border to the bright blue Andaman waters of Myanmar’s west coast, a swathe is being cut through communities sitting in the way of progress.
Paving a piece of paradise
Spectrum, Piyaporn Wongruang, Published on 27/10/2013
» Dech Khieonarong is one of many residents of Tak's Umphang district who cheered when the government announced it was reviving a plan to construct a new road from Khlong Lan to the remote town in the midst of a protected wilderness. Weary of traversing the 164km of arduous road with, by his count, more than 1,000 hairpin curves, he volunteered to head a committee of locals to push for the construction of the ''new'' Khlong Lan-Umphang road, a large part of which was actually constructed more than 40 years ago by the military as part of its efforts to suppress communist insurgents. The military managed to cut 115km of road through the deep forest inside Mae Wong National Park, 30km from Umphang in the 1970s. The military backed off on completing the road to Umphang because of objections that it would compromise the Western Forest Complex. Over the years the military road fell into disuse and is now overgrown and impassable in some places.
Clock ticks for parks to keep promises
Spectrum, Piyaporn Wongruang, Published on 02/06/2013
» Officials in charge of overseeing the Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai Forest Complex are scrambling to come up with a plan to stave off a potential downgrade by Unesco's World Heritage Committee this month.
Shots in the park threaten nation's endangered species
Spectrum, Piyaporn Wongruang, Published on 10/02/2013
» It was the shooting of the cat-sized krachong (mouse deer) that really made Kaeng Krachan National Park chief Chaiwat Limlikhitaksorn angry. He and a team of park officials had just arrested a group of illegal hunters who had shot the krachong for sport, along with more than 100 rare giant Asian river frogs, in November of last year inside the park.
Thailand at the centre of rising illegal ivory trade
Spectrum, Piyaporn Wongruang, Published on 13/01/2013
» 'They are all authentic elephant ivory,'' a middle-aged retailer of crafted ivory ornaments told a group of visitors at her shop in Nakhon Sawan's Phayuha Khiri district last week.