National Report on Protected Areas and Development

Foreword

Thailand’s remarkable development progress over the past several decades has often occurred at the expense of its natural resource systems. Forests, seashores and wetlands have been damaged and various types of development infrastructure have replaced natural environments. Economic priorities took precedence over conservation.

Protected areas are the last remaining bastions of Thailand’s vital natural resource systems. Awareness of the importance of protected areas in preserving the nation’s ecological integrity — on which its sustainable development depends — has grown with rapid modernisation. Increasingly, both the Royal Thai Government and the Thai people have recognised that the kingdom’s protected area estate is a vital asset, both for conserving natural systems and species, and for sustaining national economic development potential and the livelihoods of millions of rural people. Thailand’s protected areas already form one of the largest systems in the world as a proportion of national territory, and the government plans to increase the protected area estate to 25 per cent over the next decade. The Thai Protected Areas and Development Review is therefore a significant and timely initiative.

In the past, conservation issues were viewed as being separate from economic development concerns. This is changing, however. Protected area conservation has now become a major consideration for economic planners and a range of government and private sector development organisations. Protected area conservation and national economic development concerns are substantially interlinked. The Thailand PAD Review has helped to crystallize the understanding of the multiple benefits that protected areas provide to a range of development sectors. It is now much better appreciated that protected areas are essential for maintaining the capacity of critical ecosystems to support sustainable development. The PAD Review galvanised a multi-sectoral conservation and development constituency, bringing together — in some cases for the first time — specialists from forestry, agriculture, water resources, fisheries, tourism, power generation, transportation and industry. The review enabled specialists representing these diverse disciplines and organisations to reflect on how protected areas contribute to the productivity of various development sectors and how those benefits can best be enhanced and maintained.

This growing consensus about the links between conservation and development and the need to focus greater attention on Thailand’s protected area system led to the establishment of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. The Ministry is now in the position to adopt a wider and more inclusive view of conservation issues, and to act on them in a broader developmental context.

Adopting the recommendations emerging from the PAD Review will enable the development benefits of protected areas to be conserved and incorporated into the mainstream of Thailand’s development planning process. An initial step is properly valuing protected areas in economic terms and reflecting those values in national and sector budgets and in the overall flow of investment going to conservation. Protected areas need to be planned and managed as important components of the wider development landscape. The government has been piloting the management of complexes of protected areas that are linked through natural systems and surrounding developments. It has also been exploring various joint management approaches to protected areas so that communities can use and conserve natural resources in the long term. This work needs to continue as part of implementing the PAD Review Report.

It is in the interest of all of the concerned development sectors to put the PAD strategies into action. As this process continues, it will be necessary to capitalise on the experience and continuing support of the PAD partnership. For its part, the government is committed to the ongoing implementation of Thailand’s PAD program and will be seeking to put the review strategies into practice.

Minister of Natural Resources and Environment

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Citation

ICEM, 2003. Thailand National Report on Protected Areas and Development. Review of Protected Areas and Development in the Lower Mekong River Region, Indooroopilly, Queensland, Australia.
ISBN: 0 975033 23 9

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The full report in English [PDF 1,452 KB]
The report in English without images [PDF 488 KB]

Thematic maps of Thailand's protected area system

The protected area system [GIF 1000x1403 pixels 208 KB]
Protected area complexes [GIF 1000x1505 pixels 140 KB]
Protected areas and landuse [GIF 1000x1423 pixels 198 KB]
Protected areas and poverty levels [GIF 1000x1430 pixels 219 KB]
Protected areas and population density [GIF 1200x1388 pixels 202 KB]

Visit the Thailand protected area maps page for set of map data sources

Table of contents

Foreword
Acknowledgements
Summary
Introduction

1. Thailand Protected Areas and Development Review

PART 1: Thailand’s biophysical and demographic characteristics and their implications for protected areas

2. Biogeographic characteristics
3. Demographic characteristics

PART 2: Economic development, governance and protected areas

4. Structure of government and key areas of reform
5. Economic development
6. Economic planning

PART 3: Natural resource management and protected areas

7. Natural resources management
8. Protected areas and environmental policy

PART 4: Sector development and protected areas

9. Forestry and protected areas
10. Water resource management and protected areas
11. Energy development and protected areas
12. Tourism and protected areas
13. Agriculture and protected areas
14. Marine fisheries, coastal development and protected areas
15. Roads and protected areas
16. Community development and protected areas

PART 5: Protected areas as a development strategy

17. Economic development and protected areas
    • Institutional Strategies
    • Policy framework
    • Integrated multi-sectoral planning approaches

References and suggested reading
Abbreviations and acronyms

^ TOP

Review of protected areas and their role in socio-economic development
in the four countries of the lower Mekong River region

page updated: 11/08/04