Thap Lan World Heritage, Thailand
Park and Wildlife Protection

Completed GC Project

From 2016-2021, Global Conservation provided critical funding and technical support to strengthen law enforcement in Thap Lan National Park, Thailand, a critical tiger recovery area integral to the Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai (DPKY) UNESCO World Heritage site containing the last intact forests and wildlife habitats in Eastern Thailand, just 3 hours north of Bangkok.  

Global Conservation is partnering with Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Thailand on a multi-year Global Park Defense program which began in 2016 at the height of the Siamese Rosewood poaching crisis.

Thap Lan has been closed for decades due to high levels of illegal logging for Siamese Rosewood and land clearing for illegal development of lodges and houses within the national park. Until 2015, wildlife poaching was rampant and unpunished, leading to fears of extinction for critical species, including the last tigers in Eastern Thailand. Nearby Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam already have lost all their tigers and rhino, and the last wild Asian elephants are under siege.

Due to its importance and outstanding value for mankind and biodiversity, Global Conservation invested heavily to deploy Global Park Defense systems in partnership with Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Thailand, and national park authorities, law enforcement and the military. Overview schematic of Global Park Defense.

Park and Wildlife Protection 

Over the five years of the GC Project, this substantial targeted investment in park and wildlife protection, nearly $600,000, has resulted in a number of critical successes: 

1. Major increase of law enforcement cases for rosewood poaching and arrests (over 600), until the numbers of incidents started to decline in 2018. In 2018, the number of arrests declined significantly while patrol frequency and coverage by park rangers increased, pointing to a reduction in illegal logging and wildlife poaching.

2. Global Park Defense systems now enable Thap Lan rangers work to be highly effective over large areas, while improving morale and ensuring support from park authorities and law enforcement.  Many guns were seized along with many snares, and over a hundred poacher camps destroyed. Many rosewood and wildlife poachers were arrested before they cut rosewood or killed wildlife.

3. SMART Patrol systems and Cellular Trailcams, known in Thailand as Network Centric Anti-Poaching System or NCAP), have become a model for the Thai government for all parks in the country. It is clear that the anti-poaching cameras have significantly improved the law enforcement efforts in Thap Lan National Park. Even if the rosewood logging situation is resolved by 2020, the park has to stay vigilant.  Therefore, the regular patrols combining with the installations of surveillance cameras are very important interventions to ensure that the bad situation will not return.

4. A total of 715 rosewood poachers were arrested over the past 3 years, of which 226 are Thai and 489 are Cambodian.  The number of poachers arrested went from under 20 in 2015, 240 in 2016, over 400 in 2017, before declining to under 100 arrests in 2018. A 90% decline in rosewood poaching has occurred in 3 years with few new enforcement cases and smaller amounts of rosewood cut by poachers. 

5. UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee’s decision at their meeting in Poland in 2017 removed DPKY World Heritage site being listed as World Heritage in Danger, based mainly on the key improvements in park and wildlife protection.

6. Thap Lan National Park has received new commitments for government investment. The rangers conduct more intensive patrol by extending longer patrol days and patrol distance to giver better protection. 

7. The use of Global Park Defense technologies by the Government of Thailand is now a model for the country and the World Heritage Committee decided drop the inscribing DPKY as World Heritage in Danger with the clear recognition that SMART patrols and anti-poaching cellular camera traps are highly effective.  The Government of Thailand has now allocated much larger budgets to purchase the anti-poaching camera traps for all of DPKY and other protected areas in Thailand.

Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai (DPKY) World Heritage Park - Thap Lan National Park (center top) is focus of Global Conservation’s investment in Global Park Defense in partnership with WCS Thailand, park authorities and law enforcement.

Key Successes 

1. Reduced Illegal Rosewood Logging cases and the volumes of Rosewood lost to poaching -  In three years, Thap Lan Rangers have enforced against 176 cases of rosewood poaching, seized over 50 cubic meters of rosewood, and seized 52 chainsaws.   

2. Weapon Seizures - more than 112 guns of which 60 are homemade guns, 30 gun snares, 16 shotguns, and 6 rifles.  These seizures have saved many wildlife from being poached.

3. Increased Ranger Teams from 9 teams in 2016 to 14 teams in 2018, combined with training on military tactics, law enforcement and investigation.

4. Improved Patrol Efforts - Park rangers in Thap Lan spend about 4 days per patrol trip, and an average of 500 km/month on foot patrol and 850 km/month on vehicle patrol.  Foot patrol distance actually decreased with the greater use of cellular camera traps along the boundary of the parks to intercept poachers coming in and out.  Therefore, most of the arrest cases in 2018 have happened near the boundary where vehicle accessibility is possible.

5. Recovering Tiger Population estimates show up to 10-12 tigers now living in Thap Lan National Park, with many new cubs.

Success in Anti-Poaching and Law Enforcement

Thap Lan World Heritage – 2016-2020 Progress 

Our goals in Thap Lan National Park are to establish an effective and fully functioning SMART Patrol system with stronger patrol coverage and frequency, especially in the zones threatened with wildlife and rosewood poaching. 

Since January 2018, new rangers have been hired and fully supported, increasing from 9 teams in 2017 to 14 teams in 2018.  This development has helped intensify law enforcement actions. 

Provisions and field supplies are funded for 80 park rangers, as well as group life and medical insurance with the goal to improve morale and incentivize rangers, and to provide rewards for park rangers for important arrest cases, as well as covering transportation costs for park officers who need to attend court cases.    

New shotguns have also been purchased by the government. The Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation has purchased 3,000 shotguns and has allocated 43 shotguns to Thap Lan – an important development as the shotguns the park used previously were old and broken. 

In January-February 2019, patrol teams covered about 30% of the park area on patrol trips. These trips last about 4 days where they spend an average of 900 km/month on foot patrol and 1,250 km/month on motorcycle and vehicle patrol. 

Global Conservation funds critically needed equipment, training and support for patrol operations – supplies, fuel, food, maintenance of vehicles to enhance ranger performance, incentivize rangers, and improve the quality of law enforcement in the area. 

In addition to the deployment of Cellular Trailcams along the boundary of the parks to intercept poachers, foot patrol remains an important law enforcement tool in order to continue covering the vast areas of the park. Vehicle patrols along the border have been helpful to detect fresh signs of rosewood poaching gangs. During these trips, the patrol teams have focused their patrol frequency in areas near the northern and southwestern sections of the park where rosewood poaching activities have most occurred over the past 3 years. 

Despite the clear decline of rosewood poaching over the past 3 years, there is still evidence of poachers trying to penetrate the region. During January-February 2019, 10 Thai poachers and 24 foreigners were arrested. The patrol teams intercepted and successfully destroyed 20 poacher camps, 14 snares, and seized 15 homemade guns.   We conducted training of new rangers and refresher training for existing park rangers including SMART and NCAP components of Global Park Defense.

There are now 80 park rangers in Thap Lan National Park, and increase of 40 since Global Conservation began funding. Securing equal matching contributions and funding of ranger salries, station construction and vehicles for rangers 50 are experienced rangers who have used the SMART patrol system.  The other 30 rangers are new rangers who have replaced the ones who have left and/or retired.      

Rangers learned various tactical and technical techniques including: arrest techniques, firearms, self-defense, maps, compass, GPS, SMART patrol data form.  We also distributed high quality uniforms and camp gear to each of them to boost their morale and increase patrol effectiveness. Additional training details can be found in the earlier brief report. 

Thap Lan National Park has deployed about 40 Cellular Trailcams to arrest poachers both before and after they cut rosewood and kill wildlife.  This system has significantly increased the arrest rates.    Cellular Trailcams require maintenance, replacement, recharging of cellular phone SIM cards, batteries, and human analysis of photographs and poacher arrest data to keep shifting them to effective locations.    

SMART Patrols enable analysis of all arrests and illegal intrusion locations and the frequencies of all threats, enabling rangers to be deployed more precisely to intercept poachers as they come in and out of the park.  We placed NCAPs in the areas with records of high poacher activities. It is evident that anti-poaching cameras have significantly improved law enforcement efforts in Thap Lan National Park.

GPS Tracking of Illegal Wood. Park officials and law enforcement jointly deployed 20 GPS trackers on logged wood found in the park to enable tracking of the the trafficking routes of the rosewood poacher gangs and arrest key middle-men and gang leaders in 2018.

By embedding GPS trackers in cut rosewood planks, organizing ranger teams to track their movement under the GPS tracking application on cellular phones, we are able to collaborate with police, army, and customs officers to arrest them at places they keep the smuggled rosewood 

Trafficking Database for Better Intelligence. With WCS Thailand technical leadership, we have strengthened the intelligence system using t “I2” database technology to track and map connections between rosewood and wildlife poachers and their communications devices, known locations and community information in the region, The “I2” database is now fully functioning in Thap Lan National Park and allows the analysis of in-coming intelligence information after strengthening the intelligence system for the area. WCS has trained 2 park officers from Thap Lan on the I2 database and purchases I2 Analyst Notebook licenses for Thap Lan.

New SMART Command Center in Adjacent Pang Sri Da National Park 
Global Conservation funded a second SMART Control Center to help leverage the SMART system to help reduce the poaching in Thap Lan from the southern neighor park - Pang Sri Da National Park. The SMART Patrol Control Center in Pang Sida National Park has successfully been completed and is now ready to be used for patrol meetings and planning starting as soon as this month. An important strategic move to strengthen Pand Sida as an important site for rosewood and tiger recovery, Global Conservation and WWF Thailand funded completion of the center.   

Global Conservation funded a second SMART Patrol Control Center for Pang Sida National Park next to the south of Thap Lan.  This is a strategic move to help strengthen Pang Sida as an important site for rosewood and tiger recovery.  Opened in March 2019 is finished SMART Patrol Control Center for Pang Sida National Park. State of the art command center for joint mission planning, debriefing and high security intelligence/surveillance/security.