A department is rapped for its deficiencies

How many trees and bushes did the Highway Department uproot from a road leading to Khao Yai National Park when it doubled the traffic lanes to four last year? One, two, 1,000 — or thousands?

The Anti-Global Warming Association (AGWA) and its allies, comprising environmentalists and residents living along that 2-kilometre-long section of Thanarat Road in Pak Chong district, Nakhon Ratchasima, counted at least 10,000 — old and young, big and small. Some had been there for 30 and even 50 years.

Don’t worry about the real figure. We should let the department do the counting. Only the agency knows the exact figure as it recorded all of the trees on Dec 14, 2009, before removing them to clear the way for the construction of the 9.7-millionbaht project, which was completed last year, to ease traffic jams and make the road more pleasant for motorists.

Now the department might have to suffer for its sins.

At the moment it is halfway through replanting the road with trees. But on May 16, the Administrative Court slapped an order on the department to plant trees of the same or similar sizes and types as the old ones from kilometre markers 2 to 10 within 60 days of the final step in a court case against it.

That step will be in the hands of the Supreme Administrative Court, the last resort for the department to reverse the ruling of the lower court.

The AGWA and others supporting the restoration of the road — 130 of them altogether — can enjoy some measure of satisfaction from the court’s decision. Thanksto them,shade cannow berestored to the road, the ecology will be rehabilitated and a clear lesson dealt to the department and other agencies.

They deserve credit and praise for their fight against the department and the Transport Ministry, another government office identified as bearing responsibility in the case. Without them, the problem would have been forgotten and the case would not have come this far.

But the real winner is the Administrative Court. It turned down the plaintiffs’ attempt to annul the already completed project on the ground, they said, that environmental and health impact assessments were not undertaken. The judges said those two reports were unnecessary as the project was not in the park area.

The department did not disturb the park, but it made more serious mistakes. Its public hearing on Jan 23, 2010 — bringing in people affected by the project, community leaders, academics, the press etc — was improperly organised. In simple terms, it was like a set-up, with no evidence of the participants and no concluding report being publicly announced.

It was a slap to the face for the department. ‘‘We had public hearings and everybody agreed with the project,’’ said Sarawut Songsiwilai, the director of the regional office in Pak Chong on July 8 last year when villagers and environmentalists decried the project after seeing the trees had been removed. Now the public knows what kind of the hearings he was boasting about at the time.

Still, that was not the cause of the department losing the court fight. It was the ignorance of the department in taking care of the environment and the ecology of the area.

The agency tried to soothe the anger of the protesters by saying the uprooted trees would not be left to die. They would be relocated to new places under Royal Forestry Department advice. When the case was no longer in the public spotlight, the department admitted the relocation plan was not feasible. It was maybe pinning its hopes on nobody following it up.

Wrong. The court did, and the judges said the highway agency was not trying hard enough to do what it said it would do, and that was against government policy and laws on environmental protection and promotion. Since it was not a serious green issue, the court allowed the department and the ministry to replant trees in the area as a way to redeem that mistake.

The two agencies are now pinning their hopes on the Supreme Administrative Court to avoid having to undertake the costly exercise. They will argue that the lower court’s order will be difficult to follow as replanting same-sized trees would pose a danger to motorists as they will be prone to fall down, department chief Chatchawal Booncharoenkit said. He said the trees along Thanarat Road, like those elsewhere, are the property of the department, and it can do anything it likes.

The agency is right in theory but wrong in reality. It and other public offices good at chopping trees down should look around and see how the world has changed to understand the rising awareness on the environment.

They should wake up and return the shade to that road.