Landmine
Impact Survey
Executive
Summary
SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS
The Landmine Impact Survey conducted in the Kingdom of Thailand
from May
2000 until June 2001 conclusively identified 530 mine-impacted
communities that contain 933 distinct mine and UXO contaminated
sites. Of these communities, 297 are located along Thailand’s
border with Cambodia, 139 along the border with Myanmar, 90 in
the areas adjacent to the Thai-Laos border, and four near the
border with Malaysia. The estimated 2,557 square kilometers of
contaminated land in Thailand directly affects the livelihoods
and safety of 503,682 persons. A thorough verification exercise
suggests that the survey was successful in reaching at least 95
percent of the contaminated communities in Thailand.
 The
data collected afford extensive opportunities for research, analysis,
and
project planning, and lead to several key conclusions:
-
Thailand’s
border area with Cambodia is the most seriously affected region
in the country. It contains three quarters of the contaminated
land and the
majority of highly impacted communities. More than half of the
mine incidents in Thailand have occurred on this border.
-
Hunting
and the collection of forest products such as foodstuffs or
wood are the most frequently reported activities at the time
of a mine incident.
-
Surveyed communities reported that large swaths of forested
land are mineand UXO-contaminated and that the loss of access
to this land is the greatest adverse impact. This creates a
severe dilemma in that low density or poorly defined contamination
in such areas poses severe and costly technical challenges to
clearance activities. One possible solution would be to selectively
target for clearance only a portion of high-value areas within
the forest confines, and to rely on risk-reduction and mine-awareness
efforts to reduce impacts in other areas.
-
The
profile of the average mine incident victim in Thailand is a
working-age
male engaged in some form of income-generating activity. The
data indicate that very few victims are children and that very
few victims are engaged in either tampering or informal demining
at the time of injury.
-
Over
one third of the mined areas in Thailand are easily accessible
and have a clearly delineated boundary on all sides. This facilitates
rapid marking and subsequent clearance activities.
-
Communities
that suffer multiple blockages of forests, cropland, and water
sources have a higher rate of incidents than other communities
do. They also tend to be clustered close together.
BACKGROUND AND PROJECT OVERVIEW
Thailand was the first nation in Southeast Asia to sign and ratify
the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production,
and Transfer of AntiPersonnel Mines and On Their Des truction. In
1998, the Office of the Prime Minister established the National
Mine Action Committee (NMAC) as the mine action policy body within
Thailand. It then established the Thailand Mine Action Center (TMAC)
to implement and coordinate mine action activities. The Humanitarian
Mine Action plan that TMAC currently uses envisions the creation
of up to seven multi-skilled Humanitarian Mine Action Units (HMAU)
to work in the most affected sections of Thailand’s borders.
The Landmine Impact Survey in Thailand began in May 1999 when the
United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS), at the behest of TMAC,
requested that the Survey Action Center (SAC) undertake the survey.
Following two preliminary missions to Thailand, Norwegian People’s
Aid (NPA) was selected to execute the survey. It established a full-time
presence in Thailand in May 2000. NPA executed the survey in accordance
with the principles and operating protocols established by the Survey
Working Group (SWG) as well as the UNMAS Certification Guidelines.
The data collection phase was completed in May 2001 and the office
closed shortly thereafter. The governments of Norway, the United
Kingdom, the United States, Finland, Australia, and Canada, as well
as the United Nations Foundation, provided funding for the survey.
A portion of these funds was made available through a contracting
mechanism managed by the United Nations Office for Project Services
(UNOPS).
NPA executed the survey with four international
staff members and more than 80 Thai nationals. The survey staff
was organized into four field groups that moved throughout the
country, coordinating their movements through one central office
in Bangkok. Data collected was entered into the Information Management
System for Mine Action (IMSMA). The TMAC provided the NPA team
with extensive support including office space, use of heavy-duty
vehicles, and indispensable coordination and liaison with Thai
military commands.
SCOPE OF THE PROBLEM
The survey conclusively identified 27 mine-affected provinces out
of the total of 76 provinces in Thailand. Within these provinces,
a total of 530 communities were identified as mine-affected. Thailand’s
border with Cambodia has 297 impacted communities with 473 mined
areas that cover an estimated surface of 1,943 square kilometers.
There are 139 mine-affected communities on Thailand’s border with
Myanmar and a total of 240 reported mined areas covering 400.5 square
kilometers. The Laos border region contains 90 affected communities,
with 213 distinct mined areas covering 211.6 square kilometers of
surface area. Near Thailand’s border with Malaysia, the survey found
only four mine-affected communities with seven mined areas that
cover just 1.15 square kilometers of land.
The communities in all regions were close to the respective borders,
averaging just 7.1 kilometers from the border with Cambodia, 12.8
kilometers from the border with Myanmar, 14.1 kilometers from the
border with Malaysia, and 24.3 kilometers from the border with Laos.
The much higher average distance for communities on the Laos border
reflects the fact that a fair degree of contamination exists farther
inland in the vicinity of old insurgent bases and battlefields.
The 933 contaminated areas range in size from one square meter to
several square kilometers. The survey collected information on these
mined areas, including boundary definitions (none, some, and all),
topographic features, vegetation cover, and type of ordnance present,
and used this information to assess the associated difficulty of
clearance. Based on this assessment, roughly 60 percent of the contamination
in Thailand, measured in terms of area, is found in large, undefined,
and difficult-to-clear sites. Yet, when contaminated areas are assessed
in terms of socio-economic impacts, smaller, more defined and easier-to-clear
areas stand out. Indeed, it is predicted that 26 percent of the
sites in Thailand can be cleared in a short time period, given standard
clearance methods.
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