Why do we have national parks, if governments lack the commitment to enforce protection of these important areas?
I’ve travelled in many of Thailand’s national parks.
A lot of them feel abandoned. It’s quiet, all day long. Where is all the wildlife?
I skipped Khao Yai on my first visit in Thailand. The reason: It’s the most popular national park.
I like to go to places where not too many people go.
The second time I visited Thailand, I went to Khao Yai for an inspection. The plan was born to start our own tour business. You don’t skip the most popular national park as a tour business.
It turned out Khao Yai really stands out of all those quiet reserves. We’ve seen a lot on all our visits from Burmese Pythons to Asian Elephants and from Flying Dragons to the Malayan Sun Bear which was definitely one of the highlights. And although the park is a little overdeveloped, it’s still easy to get away from it all and experience how nature in Thailand should be.
But then suddenly the news reports they’ve started with the construction of a 6-lane highway in the park.
Are they out of their ******* minds?
The park is under pressure of illegal poaching and forest destruction and then the government adds this to that list. How can you expect the surrounding communities to protect the area if the government comes up with this.
They even dare to tell the people that one of the reasons is to stimulate tourism in the area. I don’t know about other tour operators, but our tour participants go to a national park to experience nature. Seeing, hearing, smelling and even tasting the jungle. They don’t want to see a highway with lots of traffic and smell fumes while walking around in the forest.
The lack of commitment to enforce protection of their most important national park makes me sceptical about the future. If construction of this highway continues, what will happen in the future? Will they allow reopening the golf course? And what about all those little known nature reserves in Thailand?
I agree accessibility of an area like this is important.
It’s highly unlikely that people who have never wandered around in a healthy ecosystem like this will understand the reason why nature should be protected. Therefore, ecotourism is important and parks should be accessible to a certain extend. However, Thanarat road is more than wide enough to digest the traffic that makes use of it. Any traffic not intended to visit the park as a natural attraction, should be reduced to a minimum anyway.
The prime-minister halted the road construction after the demonstrations of several organizations like Greenpeace Thailand. I was thinking of joining the organizations with my self-made banner, but at the moment it seems like it’s not necessary. Though, we don’t know what the future will bring.
I hope we won’t need it, but I won’t throw it away until we’re sure about that.
Thank you for reading.
Would you like to visit this great park before it’s they ruin it?
Check our multi-day tours in Khao Yai. You won’t regret it.
Khao Yai National Park 
People in the area need to get together and form some sort of action committee, maybe work with the park director who seems to really care about protecting the area, as well as business owners who care about this sort of thing (some don’t and would probably like to see more traffic, must fight them).