Khaeng had to leave when the Si Nakharin Dam flooded their settlement areas. During the 1980s and early-1990s, villages of the Hmong ethnic minority group were removed from the Huai Kha Khaeng and Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuaries. The resettlement of the remaining Karen in Thung Yai was announced in the management plan for the sanctuary, drafted in the late-1980s, as well as in the proposal for the world heritage site. But, when the Thai Royal Forest Department tried to remove them in the early-1990s, it had to reverse the resettlement scheme due to strong public criticism. Since then, the authorities have used repression, intimidation, and terror to convince the Karen to leave their homeland "voluntarily", and placed restrictions on their traditional land use system which will inevitably cause its breakdown and deprive the Karen of subsistence. the sanctuary employs about 200 staff to care for more than 1.3 million rai (2,080 km2). The sanctuary is larger than the total area of Bangkok, which is 98,000 rai in size. There are 25 ranger stations inside the sanctuary. Each station is assigned three firearms, some inoperable. Sanctuary staff patrol some 12,000 km of forest paths, and another 10,000 km in the adjoining Huai Kha Khaeng sanctuary. The Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI) calculates that each forest staffer needs to police 2,083 rai (3.3 km2). In Thailand overall there are 443 protected forest zones totalling 66.3 million rai, or 20.68 percent of the country's total area. The government allocates a budget of around 61 baht per rai to manage them. See also Wildlife of Thailand Indochina References External links Information regarding ethnic minority people living in the sanctuary Pictures from Thung Yai Yai.org Western Forest Conservation Club World Heritage Sites in Thailand Wildlife sanctuaries of Thailand Geography of Kanchanaburi province Geography of Tak province Protected areas established in 1974 1974 establishments in Thailand Dawna Range