Mae Wong Dam: Is It Worth Paying?

Thailand has faced floods that inundates the businesses and causes tremendous losses since 2011. After this repeatedly tragic, the Thai government has been trying to deploy a nationwide flood management scheme to cope with this problem. One of the cabinet’s announcements on April 10, 2012 is the Mae Wong Dam Construction Project inside Mae Wong National Park in Nakornsawan Province. On September 2013, the campaigners against this project rallied the 368-kilometers march for 13 days from Nakornsawan to Bangkok stating that the government ignored the environment issues and showing their intentions in protecting the nation’s resources. In my opinion, I am strongly against this 13 billion baht plan because the protected intrinsic area will be at risk; there are no environmental impact studies, and it could not solve flooding effectively.

First of all, continuing to build this mega dam will ruin not only the prosperous forests but also wildlife. As Mae Wong dam will be built in Mae Wong National Park, a part of the largest protected forest area in the mainland Southeast Asia; it would definitely affect ecosystems in one way or another and may lead to extinction of wildlife. It is estimated that 500,000 trees will be cleared to make way for this dam. Can you imagine what will happen if Thai wildlife has no habitat or crucially killed? According to conservationists, such as the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), they are afraid and feared that this dam will endanger vulnerable species, including the surroundings of about one dozen wild tigers. Furthermore, Khun Utthipat, a lecturer at Chulalongkorn University, also expresses concerns in the same way that this plan will lead to a massive impact on tiger population and forests.

Second, this project does not have any environmental studies to assess both positive and negative influences on ecosystem. It is ridiculous that the government would like to pass this plan without a plan. If the government wants to continue this...