Poppy issue is complex

• Published: 5/03/2012 at 08:40 AM, Bangkokpost  ... 

Your article on the launch of the INCB Annual Report on Feb 29 (''UN drugs agency won't take stand on swifter executions'') incorrectly reports me as saying the government of Myanmar has cut poppy by half.

The situation is more complex. The government of Myanmar reports _ during the past five months _ destroying more than 21,500 hectares of poppy. The UNODC poppy survey for the current growing season (2011-2012) is not yet complete, but if we were to compare this eradication total to the estimated cultivation figure for the 2010-2011 season (43,600 hectares), then the amount of poppy reportedly destroyed would represent about half.

I stressed, however, during the discussion on which your article was based, that according to our information many of the fields which were reported eradicated had in fact already been lanced. In other words, the opium gum had already been harvested from the poppies. This therefore reduces the amount of poppy which can be regarded as actually having been destroyed, and would diminish the extent of ''effective'' eradication. It is therefore unlikely that Myanmar will achieve a 50% reduction in poppy cultivation this year due to these concerns.

Nonetheless, the main point is that, this growing season, there has been a significant increase in eradication efforts in Myanmar. This is a positive development, and appears to indicate that there is a real opportunity for drug control progress in Myanmar in the current climate.

GARY LEWIS
UNODC Regional Representative
East Asia and the Pacific

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How long can we wait?

Sunday's Postbag included more angles on the appalling immigration situation at Suvarnabhumi Airport. Anthony Sneddon took time out from his first (and probably only) vacation in Thailand to chronicle his issues with the two-hour wait at arrivals immigration. Leonaitasi Kuluni, a former immigration officer who apparently has no waiting issues at the airport, pleaded for understanding and to remain cool when the queues are long.
Based on my experiences at Suvarnabhumi immigration, which are at least monthly, departure immigration is generally acceptable and there are staff outside giving advice and there is a special lane for families with children and for the over 65s. Most lanes handle both Thai nationals and foreign travellers.

Arrival immigration, on the other hand, is a national disgrace, especially for a country with such an important tourist and MICE industry. Thais and foreigners are separated and there are no PR staff to assist arrivals and to use Thai lanes for foreigners. as traffic permits. Why are there no special handling stations for families with children and for the over 65s? And why, when the immigration managers know the arrivals pattern and load factors, are so many desks unmanned?

The complaints in the press on long queues and the constant, similar complaints by airlines in their meetings with AOT, have produced no lessening of the problem. So for arrival immigration there has to be a systemic problem. This presumably adds to the overall systemic problem with the Thai police, who have responsibility for immigration. No doubt this critical matter was discussed recently at the Four Seasons Hotel, as private sector advisers must be worried about this situation in addition to floods and real estate.

The bottom line is _ when is there going to be some positive reaction to this problem to deliver an arrivals immigration service which, as the first point of contact for visitors to Thailand, reflects Amazing Thailand, the Land of Smiles?

KMAC

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Try electronic cards

Unless there is a particular set of regulations that I'm not aware of disallowing immigration cards from being produced electronically, I urge the management of THAI, or for that matter, any other airline, to look into providing these cards for their passengers at the check-in counters.

This could be achieved by extracting information already provided by their passengers when they make reservations, such as names, addresses, dates of birth, sexes, flight numbers, etc.

At the immigration desks, all they have to do is to ensure the card is signed and pronto, one fast way to shorten the waiting lines, and of course not to mention good services for all concerned. Thai smiles everyone. I'm all ears!

POST SUBSCRIBER

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Rayong beach 'disaster'

A year ago this month your Green Fingers' columnist, Normita Thongtham, exposed the vandalisation of Rayong's Mae Ramphueng Beach by the very authority supposed to protect it, the Khao Laem Ya-Mu Koh Samet National Park's Royal Forest Department (Brunch March 20-26, 2011).

She wrote of the felling of hundreds of mature casuarina pines and palm trees to make way for what the department was passing off as a beach beautification scheme _ the building of concrete blocks for restaurants, fishermen's houses and fish markets right on the beach.
One year on the fishermen's houses are unoccupied, except for one lone tenant who has turned his new house into an instant slum by building a drift wood and corrugated iron lean-to against it and has strewn rubbish all around his house. Not that you would notice the rubbish, because the beach is the filthiest and most polluted I have ever seen it in the eight years since I first visited.

The two ugly concrete blocks designed as restaurants remain unused. The fish markets and other unspecified developments remain unfinished and little or no work seems to be going on now. They stand as concrete skeletal scars on parts of what used to be a beautiful tree-lined beach. Perhaps after the ''consultants'' fees and charges were paid there was insufficient left in the budget to complete this so-called beautification scheme.
In all, this whole project is a monument to the blatant mismanagement of the stewardship of the Royal Forest Department. What is worse, nobody seems to give a damn.

DAVID BROWN
Rayong

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Save the elephants

My God! The Department of National Parks is still raiding the Elephant Nature Park _ it's the third raid this month! (Google DNP Raid Elephant Nature Park Chiang Mai, Thailand.)
Lek, the courageous founder of the Elephant Nature Park, wants to know why they are being singled out. As someone who has been to that park, the thought of any of those elephants being taken away horrifies me. While I'm not saying the Elephant Nature Park is the only place in Thailand where elephants are well treated, it's the only place that I know of.

Are the raids due to the fact that Lek, like Edwin Wieks, has expressed concerns about an alleged illegal elephant trade? If they are wrong (and I don't think they are) then prove it! But don't take it out on those elephants who in many cases suffered horribly before being rescued by the Elephant Nature Park.

ERIC BAHRT
Pattaya