Residents and water governance advocates get cheered up by the court’s decision, saying this is the first step towards justice in the fight for the environment
The group’s lawyer, Chalermsri Prasertsri from the Community Resource Centre Foundation (CRC), has revealed that the court informed the lawyer team last week that it has accepted the case for deliberation. The notice sent to them notes that the court decided to take up the case on January 19.
“The court’s decision to take up the case is an encouraging sign and it’s the first step towards justice in the fight for the environment of the group,” said Pianporn Deetes, International Rivers’ Regional Campaigns Director (SE Programme), who decided to join the residents in petitioning the court.
Ms. Pianporn said the 200-billion-baht project is not necessary at all. It could rather waste the state’s budget while yielding benefits to the developers and investors through the financial guarantee under the Public Private Partnership or PPP, under which certain amounts of money, from Bt 1.4 to 14 billion are set to be paid to them periodically throughout the project development periods until finished. This is despite the fact that they will use the natural resources that belong to everyone.
Daoprasuk Meepoi, one of the plaintiffs from Mae Ngao in Mae Hong Song province said she was glad to learn about the court’s decision as it demonstrates that the residents’ efforts are not totally wasted. She and other residents have been trying to gather information regarding their livelihoods and reliance on the environment there and wish those in power listen to them.
“I hope they listen to and understand us. Several communities have been sharing the natural resources from the basins and we deserve justice,” said Ms. Daoprasuk.
At least 66 representatives of the civil networks and residents from the Salween sub-basins of Yuam, Maei, and Mae Ngao in the Northwest of the country in last October had travelled from their remote communities to Chiang Mai city to petition the Chiang Mai Administrative Court to help scrap the project planned on the Yuam River as well as its EIA, an effort seen as a last-ditch.
Through the support of the lawyer team, they filed the petition, claiming the project and its EIA are flawed and illegitimate as the preparations and development processes from the beginning to approval were flawed.
For instance, the EIA in the first place excluded a number of residents likely affected by the project from getting involved in the public hearings required by the law. Several of them were not informed about the project nor invited to take part in the public hearings and consultations. Or if they were informed, the language used in the hearings was Thai and technical that they did not apprehend well.
In addition, some personal meetings between them and concerned authorities were falsely claimed as part of the official public hearings. Some photographs of their meetings were used to accompany the official hearings reported in the EIA. Other photographs of some seminars on Mekong issues attended by several noted academics were also used and claimed as part of the hearings of the project.
The project itself is also plagued with false and contesting claims, the group cited. These include its unreasonable investment and benefits in return, its investment formula of public-private partnership, the first in the country’s mega water development project that the group feared could lead to disadvantages to the state, and last but not least, the likely impacts which were addressed far less than what was supposed to.
The investment of the project, in addition, has been scaled up from around Bt 70 billion to 200 billion without clear explanations given, according to the latest report evaluating the values of the project.
The residents as such lodged the petition against the state agencies involved; first and foremost is the Royal Irrigation Department (RID) which developed the project, the Environmental Impact Assessment Expert Review Committee, the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning (ONEP), the National Environment Board and the Cabinet.
They also asked the court to enforce them to adhere to the laws relating to public hearings and consultations and introduce new regulations to protect the ecosystems of those Salween tributaries.
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