Bad guys in Thailand jungles give up poaching to become animal protectors
About the park.
Kaeng Krachan National Park, the largest national park in the country with an area of 2,915 square km, was officially declared a Thai national park on 12 June 1981. This preserved piece of Thailand rainforest contains a huge water reservoir and a very dense jungle to the north of the dam and the water reservoir. The park is located 50 km from the main town of Kaeng Krachan district in Phetchaburi province, Thailand.
The Kaeng Krachan national park is very popular with visitors, rambling and exploring the rich fauna and flora from the rainforest, enjoying bird watching, trekking to the remote mountain tops, enjoying the many scenic waterfalls and adventure wild water river rafting are some of the many possibilities in Thailand's Kaeng Krachan National Park.
From poaching and hunting to Wildlife Conservation
Kaeng Krachan National Park in Petchaburi, Thailand
Hacking a path through the very dense, gloomy Thai jungle, Prawing Klinklai pauses at a giant tree, poking his machete into the damping jungle soil. I smell 'Leopard urine, Klinklai whispers to his companions. Surely a leopard passed by here, some hours ago, urinated at the foot of this tree and covered the puddle with soil, as all cats, big or small are used to do.
A few years ago, Klinklai, aged 41, would have followed the leopard tracks, through Thailand's jungle, and hunted the big cat for its silky spotted hide.
Not anymore, once being one of the most wanted poachers in Thailand, Klinklai is now serving on the other side in the battle for endangered wildlife in Thailand. He now works as a guide and tracker for a U.S.-based conservation group in the Southeast Asian rainforest of Thailand.
This transformation is the result the pioneering effort by the New York's Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society to coax Thailand's poachers into giving up the killing of wild animals by providing them with paying jobs in the Thai jungles and forests they know very good.
The experience of these Thai rainforest guides is unrivaled. No modern biologist can match the field knowledge that they have, says Antony Lynam, director of the Thailand chapter of the Wildlife Conservation society. These guys look at a track in the jungle and tell you how many animals have passed by and whether they were jumping or running.
So far five former poachers have gone to work for the Thai wildlife society here, among them Prawing Klinklai and his two brothers, Rawang, 40, and Wichai, 37. It's a small beginning but Lynam hopes the Klinklai brothers will become role models and lure other Thais out of poaching in Thailand's rainforests and jungles.
Klinklai and his brothers grew up in a small Thai village on the edge of the Khao Yai jungle and National park of Phetchaburi province in central Thailand. By the time he was 12 years old, Klinklai and his brothers were hunting small animals in the forests, initially only for food, but later on for the hide an skin trade.
He admits having hunted more than 70 elephants for their ivory tusks, selling the ivory for about 120 US$ a Kilogram, to a businessman who provided him with an AK-47 assault rifle to go hunting with. Just 80 US$ would earn him as much as a typical Thai farmer earns in the whole month.
In those days, I didn't know what was right or wrong, I just wanted to survive and make money. I feel ashamed now of what I did in the past, but by the time I had come to my senses, I had already hunted down hundreds of endangered animals in the Thai forests, Klinklai says. I killed any and every wild elephant I came across with in the jungle, even the smaller ones.
Klinklai says he once shot a tiger, but it lived. After getting hit by the bullet, the tiger turned around and transfixed him with its yellow eyes. 'I couldn't move and the tiger just walked away, he says.
Poaching has become a big problem in Thailand. No one really knows how many poachers roam the Thai rainforests and National parks, but the World Wildlife Fund estimates illegal trading in endangered animals in Thailand, values about 5 million US$ a year. Elephant tusks and Ivory comprises about 85% of the trade followed by crocodile and tiger skins, hides and animal parts.
Poaching and encroachment on jungles by farming and logging have pushed more than 40 species endangered animals to the brink of extinction in Thailand, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature has reported.
Only about 2,000 Thai elephants are left to roam in the wild, along with only about 40 to 50 Asiatic water buffalos. The Schomburgk's deer, which can only be found the forests of Thailand, was once very commonly seen in the lush swamps along the Chao Phya River, but it is possibly extinct now, as none are seen anymore.
The poaching problem cannot be solved with Thailand's existing weak law enforcements, says Thanit Palasuwan, chief of the Thai government's Wildlife Protection Division. The maximum punishment is only a 3-year jail term plus a fine of 40,000 baht (1000 US$), but mostly convictions from the 60 to 100 yearly arrests generally only result in paying a fine of 2,000 baht (50 US$).
Khun Thanit that perhaps the best way to end poaching in the Thai Kingdom is to try and educate the local hunters about the need to conserve the endangered wildlife in Thailand. His department is following the lead of the Wildlife Conservation Society in hiring poachers as part-time guides or rangers for the Thai National parks and rainforests.
The Klinklai brothers' latest assignment is to help field researcher Dusit Ngoprasert determine the effect of new roads on the animals and the fauna & flora of Kaeng Krachan National Park, 120 kilometer's southwest from the Thai capital Bangkok.
Dusit Ngoprasert is studying the movement pattern of animals. He has put out dozens of camera traps in the forest. Infrared beam emitting cameras chained to huge tree trunks. Every time an animal passes by, it breaks the infrared beam and the camera takes a photo. protected by waterproof steel boxes, the cameras are set up in the densest parts of the Thai jungle, along known tracks frequented by leopards, tigers, elephants, leopard cats, civets, deer, monkeys and other animals of Thailand's rainforests.
Ngoprasert and his team venture into the jungle every three weeks to retrieve the films and then relocate the cameras in new spots in the forests, guided by Prawing Klinklai and his 2 brothers. Reaching those remote places in the Kaeng Krachan National park is not easy. The team must hike 10 hours every day for five or six days to cover 10 to 12 kilometer through mountainous jungles so dense that it's nearly always twilight under the rainforest's canopy of trees.
The Thai researches have to push their way through thorny undergrowth sideways to keep their face and hands from being cut. They are constantly climbing up slopes, pulling themselves on vines, or sliding down slippery forest paths, clutching at shrubs.
On a recent trip, Prawing and his brothers sat down and talked to a reporter about their old careers as animal poachers and the turnaround that took place in their lives.
'I learned hunting and poaching from my brother, says Wichai, the youngest of the 3 brothers, nicknamed Little Bear, because of his bushy beard and thick eyebrows.
As Prawing became increasingly notorious in the Thai jungle, the pressure from forest rangers became too much and Prawing decided to quit. Six years ago, he was introduced to Lynam, who hired him at a salary of 10,000 baht a month (200 US$), joined by his brothers some time later.
I used to kill animals, now I am trying to save them and I feel very proud about it, Prawing says. Now it is exciting and much more pleasure to roam in the forest. Despite his poaching history, Thai officials never charged Prawing because of a lack of hard evidence.
His past is history, Lynam says. It is the future of the endangered animals in the Kaeng Krachan National Park in Thailand that count more today and in the future.
