AN ANALYSIS OF DAMAGES TO NATURAL RESOURCES A CASE STUDY OF AO PHRAO, SAMED ISLANDS

Abstract

The ecological impact caused by an oil spill is not as straightforward to assess as other kinds of impacts. It can be difficult to evaluate, since marine animals may not be directly killed, but may still suffer from habitat damage or reduced reproduction. This paper will focus on PTTGC’s oil spill case and an analysis of damages to natural resources. The problem of how to calculate damages exists on the government entity’s side and the judge’s side. This paper demonstrates the economic methods that should be applied to identify reasonable damages related to the environment and proposes a summary of methodologies for natural resource damage assessment that the United States of America, Europe, New Zealand, and China use to solve similar problem, in order to identify the proper remedies for oil spillage damage calculation cases in Thailand. The conclusions are as follows:

In Thailand, official reform measures on regulations, guidelines and working mechanisms concerning damage assessment should be proposed and conducted. A Natural Resource Damage Assessment Institution should be established, in order to be responsible for technical and research support, along with the assessment, monitoring, and training process.

                   The terms “value of natural resources” and “damage” following Section 97 of The Enhancement and Conservation of National Environmental Quality Act of 1992 (NEQA), should be defined in the Act in order to avoid misinterpretation and to make the terms clearer. The scope of coverage of the term “damage” in the NEQA is to “the damage to marine ecosystems, biodiversity, habitat, marine aquatic resources, species distribution and species reproduction” in order to ensure that the interpretation of the court will cover these areas.