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63-453: The Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary ( Thai : เขตรักษาพันธุ์สัตว์ป่าทุ่งใหญ่นเรศวร , pronounced [kʰèːt rák.sǎː pʰān sàt pàː tʰûŋ jàj nā.rēː.sǔan] ) is a protected area in Thailand in the northern part of Kanchanaburi Province and the southern part of Tak Province . It was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1972, and a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1991 together with

126-623: A dominant language in all aspects of society in Thailand, Thai initially saw gradual and later widespread adoption as a second language among the country's minority ethnic groups from the mid-late Ayutthaya period onward. Ethnic minorities today are predominantly bilingual, speaking Thai alongside their native language or dialect. Standard Thai is classified as one of the Chiang Saen languages—others being Northern Thai , Southern Thai and numerous smaller languages, which together with

189-524: A film star, arousing nationwide public outrage which finally led to the fall of the Thanom -Prapas Regime after the uprising of 14 October 1973 . After this accident and under a new democratic government, the area finally could be declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1974. After the military had taken power once again in October 1976, many of the activists of the democracy movement fled into peripheral regions of

252-533: A four-way distinction among stops and affricates . The maximal four-way occurred in labials ( /p pʰ b ʔb/ ) and denti-alveolars ( /t tʰ d ʔd/ ); the three-way distinction among velars ( /k kʰ ɡ/ ) and palatals ( /tɕ tɕʰ dʑ/ ), with the glottalized member of each set apparently missing. The major change between old and modern Thai was due to voicing distinction losses and the concomitant tone split . This may have happened between about 1300 and 1600 CE, possibly occurring at different times in different parts of

315-629: A global heritage. After the dam project was shelved, the proposal to UNESCO was written by Seub Nakhasathien and another outspoken opponent of the Nam Choan Dam, and, in December 1991, Thung Yai Naresuan together with the adjoining Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary was declared a Natural World Heritage Site by UNESCO. In the nomination, the "outstanding universal value" of the two sanctuaries is, in first place, justified with their extraordinary high biodiversity due to their unique position at

378-564: A hot, wet season from May to October, a cooler, dry period from November to January and a hot, dry season from February to April. Average minimum and maximum daily temperatures range from 20 to 33 °C (68 to 91 °F) in the wet season, 15 and 35 °C (59 and 95 °F) in the hot, dry season, and 10 and 29 °C (50 and 84 °F) in the cooler season. Day-time temperatures can exceed 40 °C (104 °F) in April, while nighttime temperatures of 7 °C (45 °F) are not uncommon in

441-435: A military helicopter crashed in the sanctuary, killing six high-ranking police and military officers. It turned out that they were part of a group of more than 50 officers on an illegal four-day hunting trip in the preserve. The report claimed these hunters cooked and ate the animals they killed at parties. The military refused to admit wrongdoing and the event was brushed aside by the prime minister. The scandal eventually led to

504-609: A place where ascetic hermits called aethea have lived and meditated and may do so even today. The Karen in Thung Yai regard them as holy men important for their history and identity in Thung Yai and revere them in a specific cult. Historical sources as well as local oral tradition suggest that settlement of Karen people in Thung Yai did not occur before the second half of the 18th century. At that time, due to political and religious persecution in Burma , predominantly Pwo-Karen from

567-400: A result, the boundary between gallery forest and surrounding open areas is sharp and abrupt, with the ecotone only a few meters wide. The name "gallery" comes from an older sense of that word meaning a narrow passageway; compare with " mine gallery ". They are clearly identified in the landscape by sticking to the course of the river, forming a corridor or corridor completely different from

630-530: A syllable that formerly began with a voiceless consonant (including glottalized stops). An additional complication is that formerly voiceless unaspirated stops/affricates (original /p t k tɕ ʔb ʔd/ ) also caused original tone 1 to lower, but had no such effect on original tones 2 or 3. The above consonant mergers and tone splits account for the complex relationship between spelling and sound in modern Thai. Modern "low"-class consonants were voiced in Old Thai, and

693-717: A threat to the sanctuary and pursue their resettlement. Karen villages in Huai Kha Khaeng were removed when the sanctuary was established in 1972, and in the late-1970s the remaining communities in Huai Kha Khaeng had to leave when the Si Nakharin Dam flooded their settlement areas. During the 1980s and early-1990s, villages of the Hmong ethnic minority group were removed from the Huai Kha Khaeng and Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuaries. The resettlement of

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756-586: Is a formation unique to mainland Southeast Asia and is found on about one percent of the area. Savanna forest and grassland covers about four percent, predominantly in the thung yai or "big field" covering about 140 km at the centre of the sanctuary. The remaining 4% of the area are categorized as secondary forests , fallow areas, and swidden fields in the nomination for the World Heritage Site, but include also various Bamboo forests which are not included in this classification. Like

819-506: Is based on the register of the educated classes by Central Thai and ethnic minorities in the area along the ring surrounding the Metropolis . In addition to Central Thai, Thailand is home to other related Tai languages . Although most linguists classify these dialects as related but distinct languages, native speakers often identify them as regional variants or dialects of the "same" Thai language, or as "different kinds of Thai". As

882-557: Is based on the dialect of the central Thai people, and it is written in the Thai script . Hlai languages Kam-Sui languages Kra languages Be language Northern Tai languages Central Tai languages Khamti language Tai Lue language Shan language others Northern Thai language Thai language Southern Thai language Tai Yo language Phuthai language Lao language (PDR Lao, Isan language ) Thai has undergone various historical sound changes. Some of

945-570: Is part of the Western Forest Complex , which is the largest tiger habitat in the Southeast Asia region, with around 200 of the animals living there. The area is known as a natural breeding area for tigers in Thailand and Myanmar as well. Banteng ( Bos javanicus ) and wild water buffalo ( Bubalus amee ) are known to occur in the adjoining Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary and may exist in Thung Yai too. Indications for

1008-486: Is the language of television, education, news reporting, and all forms of media. A recent research found that the speakers of the Northern Thai language (also known as Phasa Mueang or Kham Mueang) have become so few, as most people in northern Thailand now invariably speak Standard Thai, so that they are now using mostly Central Thai words and only seasoning their speech with the "Kham Mueang" accent. Standard Thai

1071-472: Is the largest protected area in Thailand. Together with the adjoining Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary ( Thai : เขตรักษาพันธุ์สัตว์ป่าห้วยขาแข้ง ) it constitutes the core area of the Western Forest Complex , which represents the largest agglomeration of contiguous protected area in mainland Southeast Asia , 6,222 km (2,402 sq mi). Management of this wildlife sanctuary is split between two protected areas regional offices: PARO 14 (Tak) manages

1134-658: The 14 October uprising that ended the military government and led to a three-year period of democratic rule. Illegal poaching by the rich and powerful is common in Thailand, said a spokesman for the Wildlife Friends Foundation. "The police, rich people and government officials do it all the time," he said. "I think it's because rich people want to show off to their friends that they have barami ( Thai : บารมี , social power), that they can afford to hunt because they have so much money." Paleolithic , Mesolithic and Neolithic stone tools have been found in

1197-535: The Khwae Noi and Khwae Yai River valleys and parts of the sanctuary were inhabited by Neolithic man. For at least 700 years, the Dawna- Tenasserim region has been home to Mon and Karen people , but burial grounds in Thung Yai and Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary have not been systematically researched. The Thai name "Thung Yai Naresuan" refers to the "big field" ( thung yai ) or savanna in

1260-943: The Mae Klong and the Mae Chan which originate in the Umphang Wildlife Sanctuary and join in Thung Yai into the Upper Khwae Yai which feeds the Si Nakharin Reservoir . Various smaller rivers in the south and southwest feed the Vajiralongkorn Reservoir while in the northwestern part of the sanctuary the Mae Kasat and the Mae Suriya flow into Burma . The climate of the region is characterised by three seasons:

1323-505: The Karen to leave their homeland "voluntarily", and placed restrictions on their traditional land use system which will inevitably cause its breakdown and deprive the Karen of subsistence. As of 2018 the sanctuary employs about 200 staff to care for more than 1.3 million  rai (2,100 km; 510 thousand acres). The sanctuary is larger than the total area of Bangkok, which is 98,000 rai in size. There are 25 ranger stations inside

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1386-555: The Khmer system first before the Thai borrowed. Old Thai had a three-way tone distinction on "live syllables" (those not ending in a stop), with no possible distinction on "dead syllables" (those ending in a stop, i.e. either /p/, /t/, /k/ or the glottal stop that automatically closes syllables otherwise ending in a short vowel). There was a two-way voiced vs. voiceless distinction among all fricative and sonorant consonants, and up to

1449-677: The Northwestern Tai and Lao-Phutai languages, form the Southwestern branch of Tai languages . The Tai languages are a branch of the Kra–Dai language family , which encompasses a large number of indigenous languages spoken in an arc from Hainan and Guangxi south through Laos and Northern Vietnam to the Cambodian border. Standard Thai is the principal language of education and government and spoken throughout Thailand. The standard

1512-491: The Thai-speaking area. All voiced–voiceless pairs of consonants lost the voicing distinction: However, in the process of these mergers, the former distinction of voice was transferred into a new set of tonal distinctions. In essence, every tone in Old Thai split into two new tones, with a lower-pitched tone corresponding to a syllable that formerly began with a voiced consonant, and a higher-pitched tone corresponding to

1575-515: The UNESCO nomination explicitly emphasizes the "undisturbed nature" of the area, and notwithstanding scientific studies supporting traditional settlement and use rights of the Karen people in Thung Yai as well as the sustainability of their traditional land use system and their strong intention to remain in their homeland and to protect it, governmental authorities regard the people living in Thung Yai as

1638-686: The adjoining Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary . The sanctuary is at the western national border of Thailand with Burma , in the southern area of the Dawna Range . It extends northeast of the Three Pagodas Pass from Sangkhla Buri District in Kanchanaburi Province into Umphang District in Tak Province. The wildlife sanctuary stretches over an area of 2,279,500 rai ~ 3,647 km (1,408 sq mi), and

1701-502: The area, predominantly on land lying between 800 and 1,000 metres elevation. Gallery evergreen forests occur along permanent watercourses, where humidity is high and the soil perpetually moist. They are often categorized under dry evergreen forests, but are particularly important to the sanctuary's fauna. Mixed deciduous forest is the most common forest type in Thung Yai, covering about 45 percent, predominantly in areas below 800 m (2,600 ft) elevation. Dry dipterocarp forest

1764-470: The centre of the sanctuary, and to King Naresuan , a famous Siamese ruler who supposedly based his army in the area to wage war against Burma sometime during his reign of the Ayutthaya Kingdom from 1590 until his death in 1605. The Karen people who live in the sanctuary call the savanna pia aethala aethea which may be translated as "place of the knowing sage". It refers to the area as

1827-411: The construction of dams and weirs causing flooding or interfering with natural stream flow. In addition to these disturbances, gallery forests are also threatened by many of the same processes that threaten savannas . Riparian zones offer protection from fire and stress from water shortages . In addition, alluvial soils offer greater fertility and better drainage, as well as greater water supply. As

1890-472: The cool season. The average annual rainfall decreases from the western part of the sanctuary receiving 2,000 to 2,400 millimetres (79 to 94 inches) a year to annual rainfalls of between 1,600 and 2,000 millimetres in the eastern parts of the sanctuary. Over 80 percent of the rain is brought by the southwest monsoon from the Andaman Sea . Phytogeographically the sanctuary lies at the interface between

1953-479: The country and some of them found refuge among the Karen people living in Thung Yai. During the 1960s, not only timber and ore, but also the water of the western forests as hydroelectric power resources became of interest for commercial profit and national development. A system of several big dams was planned to produce electricity for the growing urban centres. On the Khwae Yai River the Si Nakharin Dam

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2016-527: The country's total area. The government allocates a budget of around 61 baht per rai to manage them. Thai language Thai , or Central Thai (historically Siamese ; Thai: ภาษาไทย ), is a Tai language of the Kra–Dai language family spoken by the Central Thai , Mon , Lao Wiang , Phuan people in Central Thailand and the vast majority of Thai Chinese enclaves throughout

2079-499: The country. It is the sole official language of Thailand . Thai is the most spoken of over 60 languages of Thailand by both number of native and overall speakers. Over half of its vocabulary is derived from or borrowed from Pali , Sanskrit , Mon and Old Khmer . It is a tonal and analytic language . Thai has a complex orthography and system of relational markers . Spoken Thai, depending on standard sociolinguistic factors such as age, gender, class, spatial proximity, and

2142-458: The east part and PARO 3 (Ban Pong) manages the west part of this wildlife sanctuary. The area is predominantly mountainous and composed of various limestones interspersed with massive intrusions of granite and smaller outcrops of quartzite and schist . Elevations range from about 180 metres (590 feet) at the Vajiralongkorn Reservoir in the south of the sanctuary to its highest peak, Khao Tai Pa, at 1,811 metres (5,942 feet). Major rivers are

2205-466: The first half of the 20th century, external political influences were minimal in Thung Yai and the Karen communities were highly autonomous regarding their internal affairs. This changed in the second half of the 20th century, when the Thai nation state extended its institutions into the peripheral areas and the Karen re-appeared as chao khao or " hill tribes " on the national political agenda, as forest destroyers and illegal immigrants. Plans to protect

2268-1058: The flora, the fauna of Thung Yai provides a specific mix of species with Sundaic, Indo-Chinese, Indo-Burmese and Sino-Himalayan affinities due to the sanctuary's particular biogeographic location. The savanna forest of Thung Yai is the most complete and secure example of Southeast Asia's dry tropical forest. Among the mammal species living in Thung Yai are lar gibbon ( Hylobates lar ), various species of macaque ( Macaca ) and lutung ( Trachypithecus ), Indochinese tiger ( Panthera tigris tigris ), Indochinese leopard ( Panthera pardus delacouri ), clouded leopard ( Neofelis nebulosa ), sun bear ( Helarctos malayanus ) and Asian black bear ( Ursus thibetanus ), Malayan tapir ( Tapirus indicus ), Indian elephant ( Elephas maximus indicus ), gaur ( Bos gaurus ), hog deer ( Cervus porcinus ), sambar ( Rusa unicolor ), Fea's muntjac ( Muntiacus feae ) und Sumatran serow ( Capricornis sumatraensis ) as well as many bat species probably including Kitti's hog-nosed bat ( Craseonycteris thonglongyai ). Thung Yai

2331-547: The forests and wildlife at the upper Khwae Yai and Khwae Noi river grew in the mid-1960s. Due to strong logging and mining interests in the area, it was not before 1972 that the Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary could be established, and Thung Yai resistance was even stronger. However, in April 1973 a military helicopter crashed near Thung Yai and revealed an illegal hunting party of senior military officers with family members, businessmen, and

2394-624: The hinterlands of Moulmein and Tavoy migrated into the area northeast of the Three Pagodas Pass , where they received formal settlement rights from the Siamese Governor of Kanchanaburi . Sometime between 1827 and 1839 the Siamese King Rama III established this area as a principality ( mueang ) and the Karen leader who governed the principality received the Siamese title of nobility Phra Si Suwannakhiri . During

2457-418: The junction of four biogeographic zones, as well as with its size and "the undisturbed nature of its habitats". The death of Seub Nakhasathien, the forest conservator instrumental in the UNESCO listing who committed suicide in 1990, transformed the status of Thung Yai Naresuan and the adjacent Huay Kha Kaeng Complex into a sacrosanct site and inspired many young persons to become forest patrol staff. Even though

2520-528: The local patois as pronounced in Guangdong Ayutthaya , the old capital of Thailand from 1351 - 1767 A.D., was from the beginning a bilingual society, speaking Thai and Khmer . Bilingualism must have been strengthened and maintained for some time by the great number of Khmer-speaking captives the Thais took from Angkor Thom after their victories in 1369, 1388 and 1431. Gradually toward the end of

2583-551: The most significant changes occurred during the evolution from Old Thai to modern Thai. The Thai writing system has an eight-century history and many of these changes, especially in consonants and tones, are evidenced in the modern orthography . According to a Chinese source, during the Ming dynasty , Yingya Shenglan (1405–1433), Ma Huan reported on the language of the Xiānluó (暹羅) or Ayutthaya Kingdom, saying that it somewhat resembled

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2646-837: The object of special protection, such as those on the banks of the Tagus River in Aranjuez , which have been classified as World Heritage Sites . Gallery forests also exist along the valleys of Omaruru , Swakop and Kuiseb in the Central Namibia . Here the riverbeds are filled with a thick layer of sand, through which groundwater flows even when there is no rain. Gallery forest in cultivated land can be found on waterbodies in pasture and farmland (e.g. alluvial forest ) as well as on terrain levels (hillside forests in Europe), i.e. plots of land that are not suitable for farming. It

2709-883: The occurrence of Vietnamese Javan rhinoceros ( Rhinoceros sondaicus annamiticus ) and northern Sumatran rhinoceros ( Dicerorhinus sumatrensis lasiotis ) in the area are recorded from the 1980s, but have not been confirmed since then. Bird species sighted in Thung Yai include white-winged wood duck ( Cairina scutulata ), kalij pheasant ( Lophura leucomelanos ), grey peacock-pheasant ( Polyplectron bicalcaratum ), green peafowl ( Pavo muticus ), spot-billed pelican ( Pelecanus philippensis ), Oriental darter ( Anhinga melanogaster ), painted stork ( Mycteria leucocephala ), greater adjutant ( Leptoptilos dubius ), red-headed vulture ( Sarcogyps calvus ), mountain hawk-eagle ( Nisaetus nipalensis ), lesser fish eagle ( Ichthyophaga humilis ) and all six species of hornbill ( Bucerotidae ) living in mainland Southeast Asia. The nomination for

2772-415: The period, a language shift took place. Khmer fell out of use. Both Thai and Khmer descendants whose great-grand parents or earlier ancestors were bilingual came to use only Thai. In the process of language shift, an abundance of Khmer elements were transferred into Thai and permeated all aspects of the language. Consequently, the Thai of the late Ayutthaya Period which later became Ratanakosin or Bangkok Thai,

2835-609: The president of the Italian-Thai Development PLC (ITD), one of Thailand's largest construction companies, was arrested in the sanctuary in possession of skinned carcasses of protected wild animals, including a black leopard , a Kalij pheasant , and a common muntjac (also known as a barking deer), as well as three rifles and ammunition. Premchai faces several charges including trespassing and poaching. He has maintained his innocence. "I didn't do it," he told local media. He has failed to explain, however, why he

2898-499: The remaining Karen in Thung Yai was announced in the management plan for the sanctuary, drafted in the late-1980s, as well as in the proposal for the world heritage site. But, when the Thai Royal Forest Department tried to remove them in the early-1990s, it had to reverse the resettlement scheme due to strong public criticism. Since then, the authorities have used repression, intimidation, and terror to convince

2961-428: The rest of the vegetation, in color and height. Gallery forests are able to exist where the surrounding landscape does not support forests for a number of reasons. Gallery forests are often found along so-called "foreign rivers" in arid areas where no other forest grows due to the lack of water (river-accompanying gallery forest). The gallery forest is an azonal form of vegetation here, it only thrives there because of

3024-492: The royal vocabulary according to their immediate environment. Thai and Pali, the latter from Theravada Buddhism, were added to the vocabulary. An investigation of the Ayutthaya Rajasap reveals that three languages, Thai, Khmer and Khmero-Indic were at work closely both in formulaic expressions and in normal discourse. In fact, Khmero-Indic may be classified in the same category as Khmer because Indic had been adapted to

3087-473: The sanctuary. Each station is assigned three firearms, some inoperable. Sanctuary staff patrol some 12,000 km of forest paths, and another 10,000 km in the adjoining Huai Kha Khaeng sanctuary. The Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI) calculates that each forest staffer needs to police 2,083 rai (3.333 km). In Thailand overall there are 443 protected forest zones totalling 66.3 million rai (106,100 km), or 20.68 percent of

3150-683: The second half of the 19th century, this Karen principality at the Burmese border became particularly important for the Siamese King Rama V ( Chulalongkorn ) in his negotiations with the British colonial power in Burma regarding the demarcation of their western border with Siam . At the beginning of the 20th century, when the modern Thai nation state was established, the Karen in Thung Yai lost their former status and importance. During

3213-400: The soils of the surrounding landscape with a more reliable water supply at depth. As a result, the boundary between gallery forest and the surrounding woodland or grassland is usually abrupt, with the ecotone being only a few metres wide. Gallery forests have shrunk in extent worldwide as a result of human activities, including domestic livestock's preventing tree seedling establishment and

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3276-566: The special local conditions. Gallery forest can also form due to more favorable soil conditions on the river bank . Examples of this are the plains of the Llanos in Venezuela , where grasses predominate despite high rainfall and only the embankments are wooded. On the plains, a hard laterite crust in the soil, the arecife, which is hardly penetrable for roots, prevents the growth of trees. The exceptional nature of some of these forests makes them

3339-454: The surrounding landscapes because they are, for example, more nutrient-rich or moister and/or there is less chance of fires. The forests are sometimes only a few meters wide, because they depend on the water they lie along. The riparian zones in which they grow offer greater protection from fire which would kill tree seedlings . In addition, the alluvial soils of the gallery habitat are often of higher fertility and have better drainage than

3402-449: The terminal southern ridges of the eastern Himalayas and the equatorial forests of the great Sunda Shelf . As most of the sanctuary is botanically unexplored, scientific knowledge about its rich flora is sparse. montane evergreen forests cover about 15 percent of the sanctuary and occur along the mountain ridges above 1,000 metres where moisture levels are high. Seasonal or dry evergreen forests are found on about 31 percent of

3465-535: The terminology "low" reflects the lower tone variants that resulted. Modern "mid"-class consonants were voiceless unaspirated stops or affricates in Old Thai—precisely the class that triggered lowering in original tone 1 but not tones 2 or 3. Modern "high"-class consonants were the remaining voiceless consonants in Old Thai (voiceless fricatives, voiceless sonorants, voiceless aspirated stops). The three most common tone "marks" (the lack of any tone mark, as well as

3528-435: The three tones of Old Thai were split have since merged into five in standard Thai, with the lower variant of former tone 2 merging with the higher variant of former tone 3, becoming the modern "falling" tone. หม ม หน น, ณ หญ ญ หง ง ป ผ พ, ภ บ ฏ, ต ฐ, ถ ท, ธ ฎ, ด จ ฉ ช Gallery forests The habitats of these forests differ from

3591-423: The two marks termed mai ek and mai tho ) represent the three tones of Old Thai, and the complex relationship between tone mark and actual tone is due to the various tonal changes since then. Since the tone split, the tones have changed in actual representation to the point that the former relationship between lower and higher tonal variants has been completely obscured. Furthermore, the six tones that resulted after

3654-526: The two wildlife sanctuaries, Thung Yai Naresuan and Huai Kha Khaeng, to become World Heritage Sites lists some 120 species of mammal , 400 birds, 96 reptiles, 43 amphibians , and 113 species of fish, but research on the biodiversity in the sanctuaries is sparse. According to the Bangkok Post , the preserve, "... has been notorious for decades as an area where rich and powerful people enjoy poaching and game hunting." In early 2018, Premchai Karnasuta,

3717-508: The urban/rural divide, is partly mutually intelligible with Lao , Isan , and some fellow Thai topolects . These languages are written with slightly different scripts, but are linguistically similar and effectively form a dialect continuum . Thai language is spoken by over 69 million people (2020). Moreover, most Thais in the northern (Lanna) and the northeastern (Isan) parts of the country today are bilingual speakers of Central Thai and their respective regional dialects because Central Thai

3780-453: Was a thorough mixture of Thai and Khmer. There were more Khmer words in use than Tai cognates. Khmer grammatical rules were used actively to coin new disyllabic and polysyllabic words and phrases. Khmer expressions, sayings, and proverbs were expressed in Thai through transference. Thais borrowed both the Royal vocabulary and rules to enlarge the vocabulary from Khmer. The Thais later developed

3843-778: Was finished in 1980 and the Tha Thung Na Dam in 1981, while the Khao Laem Dam (renamed Vajiralongkorn Dam ) on the Khwae Noi River south of Thung Yai was completed in 1984. The Nam Choan Dam, the last of the projected dams, was supposed to flood a forest area of about 223 km within the Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary. A public dispute about the Nam Choan Dam project lasted for more than six years, dominating national politics and public debate in early-1988 before it

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3906-410: Was in the wildlife sanctuary and how the carcasses of the freshly killed leopard and several other endangered animals ended up in his possession. If convicted, he may be incarcerated for up to 28 years. Conservationists fear that the billionaire will be let off lightly for a wildlife crime that would see an average citizen sent to prison for years. In the most high-profile poaching case, on 29 April 1973

3969-400: Was shelved in April that year. Pointing to the high value of Thung Yai for nature conservation and biodiversity, dam opponents on the national and international level raised the possibility of declaring the area a world heritage site. This prestigious option would have been lost with a huge dam and reservoir in the middle of the two wildlife sanctuaries most promising to meet the requirements for

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