Pipeline seen ruining forest

Pipeline seen ruining forest

BANGKOK (AFP): A crowd of 100 Thai protesters began yesterday a sit-in protest in some of the country's few remaining areas of virgin forest threatened by a pipeline planned to bring natural gas from Myanmar, an environmentalist said.

The protesters, carrying tents and supplies, took up positions in the jungles of the central province of Kanchanaburi close to the Myanmar border, in a bid to seal off the forest and stop construction of the pipeline there.

Boonsong Chansongrasami, a local environmental activist, told AFP they would stay in the forest until there were talks geared at changing the route of the pipeline, or until the cabinet reviewed its decision to let the pipeline take its currently- planned course.

"We have to protect our environment which will never be the same again if it is destroyed," he said.