The announcement came at a meeting held by Vice Governor Chokdee Amornwat together with a special committee set up by Phuket Governor to investigate land titles issued for for plots of land within the national park.
The committee comprised of V/Gov Chokdee; Phuket Land Office Chief, Watcharin Jetanawanich; Suchart Kongchum of the Phuket Forest Department; Phuket Natural Resources and Environment Chief, Kasem Sukwaree and other officials.
V/Gov Chokdee said, “There are 715 plots of land within the Sirinath National Park boundary, but there are no issues with some of these plots.
“The Land Office officials made investigations into the 715 plots and have found that only 27 are legal. However, there is still an area of 70 square kilometres where further investigation is required. So far, there are 97 plots where officials can go ahead with legal proceedings,” he said.
“The whole country knows about the problem of land rights within Sirinath National Park. Some plots do have illegal land documents, some have legal land documents, while others have none. This issue has caused a lot of problems for those people who acquired the plots in question,” he added.
V/Chokdee went on to say that in 1964 some plots were marked as being within sub districts of Thalang. However, as some plots crossed national forest boundaries, in 1981 Sirinath National Park declared that the land belong to them. From then on the issue became a national one.
“We understand that people who own some of the land in this area have had to adhere to the investigation even though they have legal titles issued prior to the national park claiming back the land.
“However, since taking over, Phuket Governor Chamroen has held several meeting with officials from Phuket Land Office and Sirinath National Park and set up this committee to help investigate and resolve the problems,” he said.
“Officials at Sirinath National Park have also carried out their own investigations into the issue. They have divided the problem areas into three zones; white, grey and black.
“The white zones refer to land that have documents issued before the 1981 and have been confirmed as legally owned. They grey zones are areas that still require additional investigation, while the black zones highlight illegal owned land.
“Our findings will be sent to the Sirinath National Park and Land Offices and the owners of the 27 plots confirmed as legal will own that land and will face no further investigation or action. The committee will meet again in 15 days and may possibly hold a press conference after about within the national park,” V/Gov Chokdee concluded.