Under the park’s Operation Tanawsri, Kaeng Krachan National Park chief Chaiwat Limlikhitaksorn sent almost 100 forest rangers, soldiers, border police and narcotics officers to Jai Paen Din on the Thai-Myanmar border, using two helicopters.[1] They were to verify and search 16 target areas where people had felled trees, burned forest, hunted and cleared land for field crops mixed with cannabis.[1] Governor Monthien Thongnit, senator Sumol Sutawiriyawat and Chaiwat made the trip to the summit by helicopter from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.[2] The inspection took place on 1 May 2013.[2]
They found forest burned black from the foot of the mountain to the summit, with many large trees felled, some several arm-spans around.[2] Upland rice (khao rai) had been planted on part of the cleared ground.[2] Cannabis had been sown in the rice holes and was found in almost every encroached area.[2] The size of the cleared area could not yet be measured because the mountain is steep.[2] From the air each patch looked small, but on the ground it was more than 10 to 20 rai (1.6 to 3.2 hectares).[2] The cleared forest is watershed for the Kaeng Krachan dam and the Phetchaburi River.[1]
The officers found no offenders.[2] The intruders stole two small chainsaw engines that rangers had left near the helicopter landing site.[2] Chaiwat said the intruders were hill people who knew the forest better than his officers and had probably been watching them.[2] The governor said the offenders were probably ethnic minorities living along the Myanmar border, about 5 km from Jai Paen Din.[2] He said Thai citizens and ethnic people living in Thailand or coming from neighbouring countries would be prosecuted strictly under the law.[1] The survey found that less forest had been encroached than in every previous year.[2]