Thailand’s planned Land Bridge megaproject and its deep-sea ports in the South built on shaky science
Bangkok Post Editorial
The planned Land Bridge megaproject and its deep-sea ports in the South pose no environmental threats because the seas there are already barren — or so the government’s study claims. Science, however, shows the opposite.
That raises a serious question: If the government cannot get even the basics of marine life right, how can anyone trust this trillion-baht megaproject?
For a public hearing in August, the government’s Environmental and Health Impact Assessment (EHIA) outlined its findings on the seas off Ranong and Chumphon, where the Land Bridge’s deep-sea ports will be built.
These waters — rich in marine life — have sustained local livelihoods for generations and form a unique ecosystem. The Ministry of Natural Resources has even proposed the area for Unesco World Heritage status.
Yet the state-sponsored EHIA reported only seven units of a single bottom-dwelling species per square metre. Benthic animals are key indicators of marine health. The result contradicts previous research in nearby waters showing up to 200 species per square metre of seabed.
Marine scientists, environmentalists and local fishing communities have called the report a sham. Despite protests and repeated demands for new surveys, the government continues to rely on this rubber-stamp EHIA in public hearings.
Determined to protect the seas, a coalition of marine scientists, environmentalists and local communities conducted their own survey early this month, with the media present for transparency.
They collected samples from 20 stations in Ranong waters. A single scoop of seabed from one station was enough to expose how flawed the state’s EHIA truly is.
Sorting the sediments with the naked eye, they identified multiple groups of bottom-dwelling animals: four crustaceans, 45 polychaetes, six single-shelled molluscs and one small starfish — all in just 0.1 square metres. That is not an empty sea. That is abundance.
Team leader Sakanan Plathong, president of the Marine Scientists Association of Thailand, said samples would be sent to a lab for proper scientific identification, with full results to be released publicly.
This is not a minor discrepancy. It calls the entire Land Bridge project into question. If the government’s study on marine life is wrong, how can anyone trust its conclusions on sediment, mangroves, water flows or pollution? Every claim about the Land Bridge’s safety and benefits collapses under scrutiny.
The Land Bridge has been sold as an economic miracle: a 90-kilometre transport corridor linking a deep-sea port in Ranong on the Andaman side to another in Chumphon on the Gulf of Thailand. Cargo would be unloaded, transported across the peninsula by road and rail, then reloaded onto ships bound for global markets.
The government says this will allow shippers to bypass Singapore and transform the South into a logistics hub.
Critics disagree. Moving containers twice is slower, costlier and less efficient — unable to compete with Singapore’s fully automated Tuas Port. Environmentalists warn the project will destroy world-class mangroves, wetlands, coral reefs and fishing grounds. Tourism will suffer, and local communities fear a repeat of the Eastern Economic Corridor: pollution, dispossession and lost livelihoods.
Sovereignty is at stake, too. The Southern Economic Corridor framework overrides land-use, environmental, labour and immigration laws. It has sweeping authority to rezone land, greenlight projects and bypass oversight.
Investors — largely from China — will receive 99-year leases, land-ownership rights and permission to hire unlimited foreign workers.
The flawed seabed survey is only one crack in the government’s EHIA. Other red flags run throughout the report.
The five-kilometre study radius is far too narrow, leaving out major impact zones such as Koh Phayam, coral reefs and several fishing and coastal communities. It ignores proposed World Heritage sites, coastal-erosion risks and the effects of massive land reclamation.
Impacts on local livelihoods and tourism were barely assessed. Pollution risks were minimised. The EHIA also disregarded a Chulalongkorn University study concluding the project is not economically viable.
Still, these concerns fall on deaf ears. The government and its backers dismiss critics as anti-national — a familiar tactic when vast sums of money are involved.
The Land Bridge is too big, too costly and too destructive to be justified by faulty data. If the government wants public trust, it must start by getting the facts right.
Source: https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/3142681/land-bridge-built-on-shaky-science
