The Chief of the Sirinart Marine National Park, Cheewapap Cheewatham, told The Phuket News today (September 14) that the land paper was uncovered when Krungthai Bank contacted the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP) to ask about the status of the land.
Officials suspect that the purported owner of the land planned to raise a loan from the bank, using the land paper as collateral.
When the DNP contacted the Land Office, it was found that the “owner” had attached to the land paper a road master plan.
Permission must be obtained from the Forestry Department and the DNP for the construction of any road in a national park, yet the Sirinart Park Office – the local DNP representative – had no knowledge of this plan.
According to maps based on aerial photographs taken in 1978, three years before the declaration of the Sirinart Park, no road appears on the map in that area, leading officials to be suspicious about the origin of the road on the master plan.
“We’re sure that the [84 rai] is inside the boundary of the park,” said Mr Cheewapap. “However, to confirm this, we are waiting for the survey of the forest boundary to be completed by the Forestry Department.”
That survey is due to be completed before the deadline of September 25 set by the Director of the DNP, Damrong Pidetch.
Another oddity was the discovery of a pile of about 20 land marker posts founded dumped close to the 84 rai.
It is not clear yet whether the posts were intended for marking out the boundary of the 84 rai, or for other land to which people may already have titles.
Normally marker posts are kept in the Land Office until survey teams are ready to hammer them into the ground to mark a piece of land they have surveyed and confirmed.
The discovery of land claims beyond the 12 already under investigation has sparked concern among DNP officials that far more land than they thought may have been encroached upon.
“How much of the park is actually still owned by the state?” Mr Cheewapap asked. “The forest we’ve seen today may already be ‘owned’ by people, or may be on its way to being grant land papers.”
He believes more land ‘owned’ by individuals will be uncovered inside the park boundaries.
In addition to the 84 rai discovered this week, the sites under investigation are the Trisara resort, Hotel Pullman Phuket Arcadia Naithon Beach, Peninsula Spa & Resort at Nai Yang Beach, Pavilion Beach Resort, Layan Beach Resort, Andaman White Beach Resort, La Colline property development, Malaiwana property development, West Sands property development, cleared land belonging to Landstate near Layan Beach, a private villa next to Trisara and a half-rai piece of land next to the Peninsula Resort.