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Published on July 27, 2007

The court also ordered the state-enterprise monopoly to immediately conduct an environmental impact assessment.

Following requests by residents living near the Egat-owned Mae Moh lignite plant, the court also ordered the Fine Arts Department to register as a historic area the site where the 13-million-year-old fossils were found. The department must comply with the order within 180 days.

Egat is also required to build embankment walls and carry out necessary measures to protect the fossil site - which is partly collapsing as a result of dredging - from further damage or deterioration, within 30 days.

Surachai Trong-ngarm, a lawyer for the Nititham Envi-ronment Group, said the verdict was a victory and could be an example for villagers facing similar issues, showing them that they could fight for justice through the judicial system.

Chaleo Thaisara and 18 villagers filed a petition with the court on April 7, 2005, demanding that Egat halt dredging the area in preparation for the opening of a lignite mine. The petition was filed against four defendants - the Cabinet at the time, a former industry minister, the Primary Industry and Mines Depart-ment and Egat.

The gigantic fossil site is an agglomeration of freshwater snails that covers an area 12 metres in thickness, 300-metres long and 230-metres wide. It was discovered on a 43-rai area of the Egat mine.

The fossil agglomeration is the only one of its kind in the world. Two similar sites in Austria and Australia, both now registered as World Heritage sites, are of sea molluscs.

Egat continued dredging the site after the Cabinet agreed on December 21, 2004 to reduce the size of the protected site from 43 rai to 18 rai, although the Cabinet originally announced that the entire protected area would encompass 52 rai.

In its request, Egat claimed that if the entire 52 rai were put under protection, a total of 265 tonnes of lignite worth about Bt132 billion would be wasted. The delay in the dredging and mining would result in Lampang losing about Bt7 billion each year, or Bt182 billion for the 26-year licence period.

Surachai said the lawsuit did not mention the damage already done to part of the fossil site by Egat's operations, and he expected that Egat would appeal the verdict. However, he was confident of the court upholding the principle of protecting public property.