I stand, mesmerized by the landscape. Distant mountains are cloaked in every shade of green, and a clear, still lake reflects the sky. The deep amber sunset lights the golden script carved into the wooden sign: Kaeng Krachan National Park.

Nearby, a young couple captures the moment in a selfie—a postcard from paradise, one of Thailand’s World Heritage Sites.

“Not there... there!” Kai, our guide, tugs my arm, and points to a spot by the river. “That’s where they found part of Billy’s body.” And, just like that, my reverie breaks.

For many Indigenous people, their lands declared as World Heritage Sites morph into alien territories, belonging not to them, but to “all the peoples of the world”—especially the fee-paying tourists.

Pholachi “Billy” Rakchongcharoen was an Indigenous Karen activist. He was collecting honey when he was arrested by park officials and vanished. Five years later, pieces of his skull surfaced in a drum under a bridge—right here in paradise. Billy was just 30, about the same age as those young selfie takers.

Later, we meet Menor, his widow. Her eyes heavy with sorrow, she says, “Why do we need a World Heritage Site on our ancestral land? It never gives the community any benefits. It just takes things away from us.”

This landscape, hailed by UNESCO for its “outstanding value to all humanity,” is home to a tragedy. And the Karen people, its true custodians, are its victims. The Karen practice rotational agriculture—where different plots of land are used over successive years and then left fallow for up to a decade. Essentially, they prepare a new area for planting by using controlled fires, which enrich the soil and enhance biodiversity. All of this is accompanied by rituals and ceremonies to honor the Earth, their food provider. Since colonial times, conservationists, blind to this harmony, branded it pejoratively as “slash and burn.”

In 1996, the Karen of Bang Kloi village were evicted by the government under the guise of protecting the park. They resisted. Billy was one of them—until his voice was silenced.

Inspired by Billy and his grandfather, the indomitable Ko-ee who died aged 107 after a lifetime of resistance, the Karen of Bang Kloi reclaimed their territory in 2020, only to be violently expelled again. Despite this grim history, despite the pleas of three United Nations special rapporteurs to address human rights concerns before the designation, UNESCO assigned the Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex (KKFC) World Heritage Site (WHS) status in 2021. The accolade was in the category “natural criteria,” defined as a “significant natural habitat for in-situ conservation of biological diversity.”

But despite the beliefs of UNESCO experts and tourists, the Kaeng Krachan habitat did not occur........

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