Mass tree-planting planned for Phuket beach after illegal structures removed

After police removed removed illegal structures from a beach in Phuket‘s Thalang district, they now plan to recover the beach’s nature.

Phuket Vice Governor Amnuay announced at a meeting on Monday that a mass tree-planting would start at Layan Beach on Tuesday, November 15. The tree-planting event will begin at 9am, and will include a beach cleanup, he said.

Amnuay said that the recovery efforts will focus on 172 rai of land out of the site’s 178 rai, since some areas were not impacted, or were within the national park area.

The chief of the Cherng Talay Sub-district Administration (OrBorTor) said that OrBorTor had set aside 5 million baht to cut grass and care for the trees planted at the site, The Phuket News reported. The chief, Manoch Punchalad, said…

“It is expected that this place will be one of the spot for people throughout the whole country, and the whole world, to travel to Phuket for, because it is an area with beautiful beaches more than two kilometres long.”

Manuch added that the area would later have sculptures, parking facilities, and toilets.

This news comes after police removed illegal food and drink venues from the beach last week. The police found three venues on Layan Beach that were providing food and drinks, as well as beach chairs, sunbeds, and umbrellas. The police confiscated these items.

Eviction notices were served in 2017 when the Supreme Court ruled that occupiers were illegally encroaching on state land. Several “final warnings” were issued, with the last eviction notice delivered on September 12. The notices were posted in four different places and the business owners on the popular Phuket beach had run out of options to appeal the eviction.

The officials’ patience had finally snapped after the string of notices were ignored dating back to 2017.