อ่านต่อคลิกที่นี้ 

อ่านต่อคลิกที่นี้ 

อ่านต่อคลิกที่นี้ 

    About 10 a.m. on September 1, 1990, a wildlife sanctuary ranger entered Sueb's apartment and found Sueb Nakasathien lying on his bed. A piece of paper next to him said, "I intended to kill myself. No one is involved in this."
    Sueb chose to become the Head of Huay Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary in 1989 instead of going to London for his Ph.D. He was in charge of over 2,560 km2 of Thailand's most pristine forests and it was home to him. Soon he found out that a tiny unit of 42 people and a budget of US$ 11 per square kilometer per year was all he had to work with in preserving the forest.
    He worked feverishly during the day to control poaching, to study wildlife and village life, and educate local communities and the public. At night he would prepare lectures and reports. But the animal carcasses he found, the cut timber he saw, and the rangers' lives he lost seemed to defy these
    efforts. Proposals to authority for buffer forest areas to protect Huay Kha Khaeng were met with smiles but followed with silence. "You need to work even harder," a minister told him in Bangkok.
    Thais could not be trusted to protect their own natural heritage, Sueb decided, and looked to the world for help. More research was done and reports written for submission to UNESCO. But also more animals were killed and more rangers shot dead. At around 4 a.m. of September 1, 1990 another shot rang out in Huay Kha Khaeng. The guard suspected nothing; gunfire was such a familiar sound in this forest. If Sueb could not realize his hopes for Thailand in life, he was determined to do it in death.
    Today Huay Kha Khaeng is a natural World Heritage site, a wildlife sanctuary undisturbed by encroachment, dam construction, and auto rallies. Deforestation and poaching are minimal compared to other forests in Thailand.

    It was a beautiful sunny morning, when 40 year-old Wacharaporn Kornkamol readied himself for his daily chores. The cornfields stretching out ahead of him belonged to his family for years, some of those years in which he had tired of the efforts and rented parts out. Nonetheless, this was his livelihood. Wacharaporn put on his field boots, and made his way through the neatly manicured cornfields - the tractor's periodic plowing had done wonders for the soil. He suddenly noticed what appeared to be the first cropping of corn, and rushed to examine his earnings. Suddenly, an explosion. Wacharaporn without his left leg, but worse yet, without a justified explanation.
    Landmines continue to claim victims today. The Srakaew Association of Landmine Victims, together with Thailand's Campaign to Ban Landmines (TCBL), and the Bicyclist' for Better Health Association of Thailand have joined forces for a second year to sponsor a five-day cycling route along the Thai-Cambodian border. We, at Sarakadee Magazine extend to them our most sincere blessings. 

    Kuiburi National Park, established in 1990, near the Thailand-Myanmar border, was once dense jungle and the refuge of communists. Before the communists, there were elephants. When in 1969 the Thai government encouraged settlement in these "pink areas" to drive away communists, the effort also drove away elephants from their original trails.
    Villagers began planting pineapples around 1980. By 1995 elephant raids on the pineapple farms had begun but farmers were willing to tolerate the minimal damage. In 1997 the fruits suddenly became a daily meal andfarmers suffered. Lt. Col. Sirapol, working under a royal initiation project to rehabilitate forests, told us about check dams and seed distribution by helicopter. With enough water from the dams and plants from new seeds, elephants need not come into the village for food. They are returning to the forest and the people seem more content, concludes Lt. Col. Sirapol.
    Not so say the farmers of Kuiburi. Pineapple planters of several villages around the national park have had sleepless nights since the end of last year. Wild elephants in groups of 5-6 came in to eat the pineapples every night. They have outsmarted all efforts to keep them away, from flares to electric wire fences. Community patrol arrangements have left villagers exhausted and discouraged.
    Alongkot, a researcher tracking these elephant for years, worries that if young herd members become used to convenient feeding conditions, they may never learn how to fend for themselves in the forest. A few years from now, it will be much more difficult to retrain these elephants to return to the wild.

"เพื่อนหมูฯ"