My gardens are national parks of Thailand.
They are a recent development. Khao Yai was
formally established as the first park in 1961. In comparison, Yellowstone
in the United States of America was established as the world's first park
89 years earlier. Luckily, we do not have the historical traditions that
hunting areas were reserved for royalty who had an interest in conserving
them to ensure a steady supply of trophies. But there are precedents in
Buddhist history such
as small areas around temples have long proved sanctuaries for beleaguered
animals and threatened forest tracts: Buddhist precepts forbid taking life
of any form. However, I am not saying that this
is a guarantee that these rainforests in Thailand
will be secure forever.
Farmland increased five times over the past decades, and the forest have
shrunk correspondingly. Construction of dams, roads and other modern infrastructure
laid many areas bare. Hilltribes in the north scorched hillside to cultivate
their crops for a few season before moving on. And small scale, family-based
farming everywhere became increasingly transformed into export oriented
agri-businesses, with large tracts of land needed. Over-fishing, dynamiting,
clearing mangroves for shrimp farms and the corrosive effects of uncontrolled
tourism have been similar devastation to once rich marine habitats.
However, it was not until 1960 that a law for the protection of wild animals
as a whole was enacted. The Wild Animals Reservation and Protection Act
also set up wildlife sanctuaries and non-hunting areas throughout the country.
As of May 1994, the Thai government had gazetted 77 national parks, 35 wildlife
sanctuaries, 46 non-hunting areas, 35 forest parks as well as other protected
zones: national forest reserves, botanical gardens, arboretums, biosphere
reserves. Together they cover 65,834 square kilometers or 12.8 percent of
the country, one of the highest ratios of protected area to total country
area in the world. By way of comparison, Malaysia
similarly protects 3.5 percent of its national territory, India
4.2, Japan 6.5, the
United States 10.5 and France 8.8.
By the way, rainforest the size of a football field vanishes each second,
an area larger than Switzerland disappears each year all over our planet.
Extinction date for all the world's rainforests: 30 to 35 years if present
trends continue.