I.The project was visited on October 14, 2004 with following findings and observations:

During the day of visit, there was a stakeholders meeting to discuss the draft version of the Master Plan to Manage the Lamtaklong Basin in Municipal Area, coordinated by an SGP grantee(the Forest Concern Group) and hosted by the Korat Municipality and Provincial Council .The Plan would take care of the entire river course of 175 km., not only 19 km started by GEF/SGP.

The year 2004 has witnessed a concrete movement (intervention) from the Korat Municipality. The project to protect Lamtaklong has been in place. Putting hard structure like this and providing walking trails along would help protect encroachment and reduce direct waste disposals. Throughout the 9-km. of the river, would be better protected.


II. The progress report was received on May 3 , 2005, with following immediate results:

- 100 entrepreneurs and community leaders residing along the river gaining insight on action plans of
various stakeholders such as municipality, regional environmental office, etc
- Current threats, their sources and their trends were recognized and jointly analyzed for better
collective and effective solution
- Availability of environmental data & information along the 9-km.long of the river
(www.raorakpar.com/lamtaklong_river)
- Increased capacity and awareness of student groups ,witnessed through participation in monitoring
water quality (50 in number)

III. The project was again visited on 17 February 2006 by the NC and three members of NSC. The findings and observation were as follows:

The visiting team was shown a spot along the river where a construction of a big filtering pit was about to finish. The construction was said to be an impact of the project and financed by the municipality worth about seven million Bath and to cope with the waste water draining from two big food processing plants. Another impact was a walled structure along quite a portion of the river, also built by the municipality to prevent community encroachment and unwanted draining of both liquid and solid waste from community members.

Some NSC member felt that the hard structure in place had produced its effect upon community livelihood and spoiled a natural scenery of the river, even though it showed a good intention and participation of the municipality.

GEF/SGP should take a cautious steps when trying to focus or scale up impacts of projects by involving bigger public organization in development process. By and large, such organizations are too keen with construction with heavy equipment ready to excavate any land or dump anything that would affect ecosystems thus community way of life. For this project, it was only hoped that after the construction, the quality of water would be upgraded and maintained in an acceptable scale.

IV. The completion report was received on March 29,2007 , with following details:

Activities carried out :
1.Organizing seminars for entrepreneurs and community leaders
2.Re-investigating data & information of the river with subsequent petition for cooperation
3. Installing 10 units of household waste water treatment system , focusing on food processing small entrepreneurs
4. Investigating in-dept data & information on environmental problems of the river along
the 9-km. long river
5. Processing the investigated data & information
6. Organizing workshop on monitoring water quality for students and youths
7.Organizing campaigns through public relation (slogan contests , drawing contest and public speech on ?Lamtaklong in Dream?

Results:
1. 70 entrepreneurs and community leaders residing along the river gaining insight on action plans of various stakeholders such as municipality, regional environmental office, etc
2. Current Problems and their trends are recognized and jointly analyzed for better and effective solution
3. Emergence of 10 units of pilot demonstrating household pits for future expansion
4. Availability of environmental data & information along the 9-km.long of the river
5. Increased capacity of student groups on monitoring water quality
6. Increased awareness and participation in campaigning for the protection of the river

Communication Events:

1. The project is being aired through community radio programme called ? Phimai Community Learning Activities? FM 101.75 MHz , Monday, between 17:00-19:00
2. The project appeared in the newspaper ?Isarn Vision? , under the Korat Environment column.
3. The established website also incorporate GEF SGP-Thailand and UNDP Bangkok

Participatory Evaluation: conducted on 26 March 2006
Participants: 25 attendants
Methods: Small group meeting before seminars to evaluate the results and lessons learnt
Impact: Two categories of impacts were explained as follows:

1. Nine communities along the Lamtaklong, especially those households along the banks, have been showing interest and increase awareness through participating in conservation activities. Secured livelihood of these community members is expected, to a certain degree. As to entrepreneurs, increased awareness was evinced, due partly to competition systems for ISO on environment issues. The overall environment situation appeared to be improved. However, there were some small industry, such as ice factories, who had not exhibited adequate interest or awareness.
2. Owing to continuous connection between the grantee and concerned government agencies, increased awareness and participation from the agencies had been very satisfactory. Two major agencies that supported conservation activities were the Royal Irrigation Department and the Nakhornratchasima Municipality. RID provided in kind support in channeling the water way ( four million baht), while the municipality built waste water treatment plant and operated the systems equivalent to over one million baht.

Future Plan:

The Re-life Lamtakhlong River Project will be kept going under the name of the Forest Concern Group. Founded since 1995 and operational up to now, and into the future, the group will stress on publicizing and updating data and information on environment situation and coordinating with responsible government agencies , especially local administrative organization mandated to take care of immediate environment, to ensure optimum participatory environment protection in a sustainable manners.