Govt told to focus on mines, poverty

ENVIRONMENTAL activists have identified two New Year gifts they would like from the government: An end to support for mining companies and a guarantee that no one in Thailand will go hungry.
Key speakers at a forum debating the theme “Presents for Thailand” said the new Mineral Act and the government’s support for the mining industry would permanently destroy the natural fertility of the land, harm the livelihoods of local people and benefit only foreign investors.
Much of the discussion focused on the government’s policies toward gold mining, oil-drilling companies and the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) special economic zone development.
Tiwa Tang-on, an environmentalist from Chanthaburi, claimed the natural resources of the country, especially in the Eastern Region, were being heavily exploited by a few rich investors, not only polluting the environment but also affecting people’s livelihoods.

Tiwa Tang-on // Photo : www.ppvoice.thainhf.org
He urged the government to offer a seasonal gift to people by stopping harmful policies and instead direct the country to more sustainable development.
Tiwa said the Eastern Region provinces were involved in the gold mine expansion plan, which, if approved, would lead to the destruction of forests and the region’s major water sources.
He also warned that the EEC industrial expansion would pollute the region and harm the ecosystem of the country’s largest source of fruit. “I have been working on agroforestry for long enough to realise that in a world with decreasing natural resources, countries producing food will survive – we can see that despite the Middle East countries being rich in oil deposits, when the oil runs out, they will starve,” he said.
If the government really needed to pursue the EEC, he said, it had to first decide what to do with 30 million tonnes of leftover garbage and the new industrial waste that would be generated by new industry, as there were more than 100 illegal industrial waste landfills scattered all over the region from existing industrial zones.
Former Bangkok senator Rosana Tositrakul agreed that Thailand was ideally situated geographically for agriculture, as the climate and land fertility were good enough to grow food all year round.

Former Bangkok senator Rosana Tositrakul
“Our region was historically called Suvarnabhumi, or the land of gold, but in this sense our true gold is food, because people need to eat to survive and we cannot consume gold to live,” Rosana said.
She added that despite Thailand also being rich in underground minerals, some resources should stay underground, because digging them up could have toxic results. For instance, she said, potash mining would generate large amounts of salt as a by-product, which kills most plants and turns fertile farmland into barren wasteland.
Meanwhile, prominent anti-gold mine activist Somlak Hutanuwatr said even though Thailand was one of the richest countries in term of natural resources, people benefited very little from that wealth, because most of the profits went to foreign investors.
Moreover, Somlak said many people, such as those around the gold mine in Phichit run by Akara Resources, had suffered from environmental problems and become sick, while a foreign company exploited Thailand’s natural resources.
“Thai people will not tolerate corrupt civil servants and foreign companies exploiting our national treasure and leaving pollution and conflict for the local people any more,” she said.
However, Somlak applauded Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha for suspending all gold mining in the country and urged him to not listen to corrupt officials and instead to act in the interests of people and national resources.