131th National park created

Last week the 131th National Park became officially established by publishing the Royal Act in the government gazette. The park covers an area of 354 km² of Chiang Mai and Lamphun province. Oddly the Royal Act does not include the name of the park, but an older list of the IDs of the protected areas assigned by the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation includes those parks in the process of being established, and thus it was possible to identify this new one to be the Mae Ta Khrai National Park (อุทยานแห่งชาติแม่ตะไคร้).

The agendas of all cabinet meetings are searchable online, and with that resource I was able to find that this new park was first discussed in November 2008, and then again in June 2016. I guess the first time was to get the go-ahead on the preparations, while the second was the final approvement to prepare the Royal Act.

According to that ID list there are still another 16 parks pending their creation - but sadly that Excel sheet is  from 2013, so there may be some other changes to that pending list in the meantime. It would be good if the DNP would have an up-to-date version of that list online, and especially not change the values anymore after a protected area became official - there are several versions of that ID list with sometimes different values floating around in long-forgotten parts of their website which only Google can still find. For example, Mae Ta Khrai according to the 2013 list has the ID 9105, however the description of the park on the DNP website uses a PTA_CODE of 9101.

Not being a stable ID is the reason why I haven't yet proposed it to become a property in Wikidata, to further help identifying the protected areas of Thailand. When I rechecked the list of items there to prepare the map below, I found one duplicate entry which was added under its present and a former name separately. The map below should show all of the current and (and least most) proposed national parks as saved in Wikidata.

130th National Park

First page of Royal Gazette announcement

While it is very quiet at the Royal Gazette concerning the administrative subdivisions, a lot of new protected areas get designated in the past months. The most notable was announced today, making Khun Sathan National Park (อุทยานแห่งชาติขุนสถาน) in Nan and Uttaradit off
icially the 130th national park of Thailand. The park covers an area of 342.49 km² in the southern part of Nan province, containing area from seven subdistricts in Nan and of one subdistrict in Uttaradit.

But as mentioned, it wasn't the only new protected area since the 129th park and several non-hunting areas in January - another three non-hunting areas were officially announced as well recently.

• Omkoi Non-hunting area (เขตห้ามล่าสัตว์ป่าอมก๋อย), Chiang Mai covering 288 km², announced February 2 [Gazette].
• Nam Pat Non-hunting area (เขตห้ามล่าสัตว์ป่าน้ำปาด), Uttaradit covering 169 km², announced February 2 [Gazette].
• Mae Pai Non-hunting area (เขตห้ามล่าสัตว์ป่าแม่ปาย), Mae Hong Son covering 101 km², announced March 13 [Gazette].

All three I cannot find anywhere on the website of the National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department, so the names above are just my guess - the Royal Gazette announcements of national parks, non-hunting areas and wildlife sanctuaries oddly never mention the name for the protected areas.

New non-hunting areas

The last announcements of 2016 I had processed from the Royal Gazette were about protected areas, and the first of 2017 are again of the same category - another six new non-hunting areas (เขตห้ามล่าสัตว์ป่า) were created by the publication on January 5.

• Khao Phanom Thong (เขาพนมทอง), Phitsanulok, covering 14125 rai of the Lum Nam Wang Thong Fang Sai national forest. [Gazette]]
• Mae Lao-Mae Kok (แม่ลาว-แม่กก), Chiang Rai, covering 8025 rai of the Mae Lao Fang Sai and Mae Kok Fang Khwa national forest. [Gazette]]
• Nong Leng Sai (หนองเล็งทราย), Phayao, covering 8025 rai around the same-named lake. [Gazette]]
• Huai Sak-Mae Kok (ห้วยสัก-แม่กก), Chiang Rai, covering 4003 rai of the Huai Sak and Mae Kok Fang Khwa national forest. [Gazette]]
• Sob Kok (สบกก), Chiang Rai, covering 5550 rai of the Sob Kok Fang Khwa national forest. [Gazette]]
• Mae Pun Noi-Mae Pun Luang-Huai Pong Men (แม่ปูนน้อย-แม่ปูนหลวง-ห้วยโป่งเหม็น), Chiang Rai, covering 5550 rai of the Mae Pun Noi, Mae Pun Luang and Huai Pong Men national forest. [Gazette]]

My main problem - I have no idea what are the official names of these non-hunting areas. The Royal Gazette announcements don't state a name for the protected area, it only names the national forests or the area which is affected. I haven't been able to find any updated list of non-hunting areas on the website of the National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department either. The latest I have is a spreadsheet which lists all the protected areas, which however dates from 2013. While it included a few non-hunting areas pending their official creation, none of these six was among them. Therefore, I haven't yet added items in WikiData for them, as I don't want to make those guessed names listed above any more public.

129th national park

Though they are not really connected to the administrative subdivisions, I am also collecting the protected areas in my XML files and thus also monitor the Royal Gazette for any newly declared national park or other protected areas. In the final week of 2016, three new protected areas have been officially declared, most notably the 129th national park Nam Tok Chet Sao Noi (อุทยานแห่งชาติน้ำตกเจ็ดสาวน้อย) in Saraburi province. As the declaration of national parks requires a Royal order, this is also the first such announcement processed by me which was signed by the the new king.

Like the 18 other national parks which are pending their official declaration, the area around the Chet Sao Noi waterfall has been unofficially treated as a national park for several years already, as can be seen by the street view of the entrance from 2014. The park covers an area of 26238 rai (41.9802 km²) at the border between Saraburi and Nakhon Ratchasima province and consists of the three forests Thap Khwang (ป่าทับกวาง)and Muak Lek Pleng 1 (ป่ามวกเหล็ก แปลงที่ ๑) - protected in 1984 as a national forest [Gazette] and Dong Phaya Yen (ป่าดงพญาเย็น) created in 1962 [Gazette]. Interestingly, both were not among those national forest announcements I had collected before, the title of the announcements had changed slightly and thus they slipped my previous searches.

The other two new protected areas are non-hunting areas, less protected than National Parks and thus the announcements are done by the Ministry of National Resources and Environment itself. The two new areas are

• Pa Ban Hong non-hunting area (เขตห้ามล่าสัตว์ป่าป่าบ้านโฮง) covering 379 km² in the border of Chiang Mai and Lamphun province [Gazette].
• Doi Phu Kha non-hunting area (เขตห้ามล่าสัตว์ป่าดอยภูคา) covering 119 km² in Nan province [Gazette]. This area wasn't listed as a non-hunting area under creation in any of the lists I found so far, so I am not sure if the official name is correct - the announcement only lists the names of the forests included, not the name of the non-hunting area created.