The residents of Chana, a seaside district in Thailand’s Deep South, live by a slogan: “Hill, forest, rice field and sea.”
For generations, people here have lived off the bounties of the land and sea by farming, logging and fishing. But some of them worry that, one day, their livelihoods could vanish should the Thai government go ahead with a plan to build a 2,680-heactare industrial estate in the mainly Muslim Malay border region.
“This project does not promote or support the quality of life of the local people nor help them grow with the government policy,” Khairiyah Rahmanyah, a 21-year-old resident of Chana, told BenarNews, referring to the megaproject approved by the central government in 2019.
“It could also [worsen] climate change. The factories would spew greenhouse gases and harm nature.”
Others in Chana fear that water quality, aquatic species and air quality could be affected.
In 2016, the government under then-Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha unveiled plans for pouring 18.7 billion baht (U.S. $530 million) into developing an “economic triangle” that would cover much of the Deep South.
The idea, as Prayuth’s government promoted it, was to help lift the local population out of poverty and divert threats from a Malay separatist insurgency concentrated in the far south.
The megaproject was approved in principle three years later, but protests by locals have brought it to a temporary halt.
“The government would not talk about the project due to the pending environmental assessment,” Chanathan Saengphum, secretary-general of the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Center, told BenarNews.
In 2019, developer TPI-PP, called for an array of power plants using liquefied natural gas (LNG), solar energy, wind power and biomass to produce a combined 3,700 megawatts per year. Developers are also proposing a deep seaport and LNG depot along with other industries to be built in the Deep South.
“They should not be here. An industrial estate impacts the resources and quality of life of local people,” said Khairiyah.
Mariyam Ahmad in Pattani, Thailand contributed to this report.
