- A Thai court has ruled a gold mining company liable for environmental damage and health impacts, ordering compensation for nearly 400 villagers and mandating cleanup measures.
- The landmark verdict, Thailand’s first environmental class action, is being appealed, delaying payouts and prolonging an already decade-long legal battle.
- Villagers say the compensation falls far short of their losses, with many continuing to suffer from contamination, health issues and ruined livelihoods.
- The case highlights ongoing tensions over mining impacts and accountability, as operations continue and communities push for stronger legal action and remediation.
BAN KHAO MO, Thailand — On March 24, 2026, residents of this small community achieved a landmark legal victory. Ten years into a class action suit against the Chatree gold mine, the Bangkok Civil Court ruled in their favor, holding the company liable for environmental damage and health impacts.
Four days later — and four years after first documenting the villagers’ struggle for justice — Mongabay returned to the community still living in the shadow of Thailand’s largest gold mine.
The scene in the village was hardly celebratory.
Thailand’s mid-summer bore down with relentless, furnace-like heat. Villagers around the gold mine retreated to the sparse shade of trees, waiting in uneasy uncertainty.
The court had ordered the company to compensate nearly 400 villagers found to have elevated levels of heavy metals in their blood. It must also shut down one of the storage facilities where it keeps mining waste, or tailings, long cited as a source of contamination, and bear the full cost of environmental rehabilitation — an effort one expert estimates could reach hundreds of millions of baht.
The verdict is historic, the country’s first environmental class action following a 2015 legal amendment that enabled such lawsuits. Yet, even with the support of an NGO, only 40 villagers were able to make the five-hour journey to Bangkok to hear the verdict in person.
Akara Resources Plc., operator of the Chatree mine, swiftly vowed to appeal. Its parent, Australia’s Kingsgate Consolidated, stated the same day it did not agree with the court’s findings, citing inconclusive evidence.
An appeal will prolong the case by years. Any compensation remains on hold pending a final ruling.
“The amount proposed to the court was already cut by half from what the villagers sought, so it will never cover their losses or what they have endured,” says Emilie Palamy Pradichit, founder and executive director of the Bangkok-based Manushya Foundation, which has supported the case from the outset.
One villager who attended mediation sessions with the company said the proposed compensation fell far short of what the community had sought. “There are hundreds of us, so I can’t speak for everyone,” he said. “But it comes to roughly 1 million baht (about $30,000) per person. That’s for 25 years we have lived with it.”
For more than a decade, villagers have raised concerns over contamination linked to the mine, with elevated heavy metals found in their bodies and chronic health problems, including skin disease.
They also found that polluted water and degraded farmland have undermined livelihoods, forcing some to abandon their homes and fracturing the community.
The court set direct compensation at between $2,300 and $7,200 per person, plus medical expenses of roughly $161 each.
A legal ordeal
Ten years have taken a heavy toll. “We have lost so much, when in reality we have almost nothing left to lose,” said 67-year-old Chamnian Buakam.
Chamnian recalls seeing Log Paobua, one of the four lead plaintiffs and a key witness, returning from one of many long, draining trips to the court in Bangkok.
“He told me the lawyers had torn him apart in court. He was exhausted to the core and wanted to give up,” Chamnian says. It was Sept. 22, 2023, seven years into a legal ordeal none of them had ever imagined.
That night, Log took his own life.
Another lead plaintiff, Premsinee Sintornthammathata, eventually withdrew from the case, surrendering her property under a long-standing purchase offer from the gold mine, which then agreed to drop the number of lawsuits and defamation cases it had brought against her. One of several villagers who has faced charges ranging from trespassing to defamation, Premsinee has kept a low profile since.
She has kept a low profile since.
“I was so intimidated that I knew I could not just disappear there unnoticed, so I agreed to give up the house my ancestors once lived in,” Premsinee says.
However, her sister, Pimkwan Sintornthammathata, was at the court on the day of the verdict and spoke to the media.
“We won today because we have clear evidence from blood tests and environmental examinations,” Pimkwan said.
An uncertain victory
Has what the villagers paid for this modest victory brought any real change? Will it deliver the better life they have long awaited?
All of the villagers Mongabay interviewed said they were uncertain what the verdict would mean.
Among them are Pisamai Riangpa and her son, Pichitpong. He was 6 when Mongabay first interviewed the family; he’s 11 now and taller than his mother.
When Pisamai was four months pregnant in 2015, blood tests at a government hospital revealed elevated heavy metal levels. Her manganese measured 1.39 micrograms per liter (μg/L), exceeding the normal range of 0.2–1.1 μg/L.
Pichitpong was born with similarly high manganese levels and required frequent hospitalization during his first year.
Pisamai scratches her skin constantly during the interview. “The water we use irritates my skin — I can’t stop scratching,” she says. She still doesn’t know how, or if, the compensation and the court victory will translate into real change.
We also visit where Pranom Chimpalee used to live alone, just half a kilometer, or a third of a mile, from the mine pit. She had lost her 80-year-old mother to a severe skin condition whose cause was never determined. “It was unbearable,” she told us four years earlier through tears. “I didn’t even want to breathe.”
Pranom has since left. Her house now lies in ruins, and even before her departure, the entire neighborhood had already fallen into decay.
Pranom isn’t the only community member we failed to meet again. Manit Lampason, whose home stood less than 0.8 km (0.5 mi) from the mine’s tailings pond, died on March 24, 2025 — exactly a year before the verdict came down.
“I have been living with the cyanide pond for years,” he told Mongabay in 2022.
In 2011, tests at a government hospital had detected dangerous levels of cyanide in his body. Laboratory records reviewed by Mongabay showed a concentration of 1.04 μg/L — above the lab’s toxicity threshold of 1 μg/L. A follow-up test five months later recorded an even higher level: 1.56 μg/L.
Cyanide is widely used in gold extraction, and human exposure to it at high concentrations can be toxic. Its use in gold and silver mining has been banned in countries such as the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary and Costa Rica, as well as in parts of the United States.
“He developed a skin infection that spread so severely that the doctor had to scrape away the dead tissue and left him with open, fresh flesh,” Chamnong Buakam, Manit’s 75-year-old widow, tells Mongabay. “He suffered for five months and died after several nights in [intensive care].”
The Chatree mine, which started operating in 2001, was suspended for seven years, from 2017 to 2022, under an order by Thailand’s military government, citing environmental concerns. The company, in turn, sued Thailand for revoking its permit. Operations resumed in March 2023, with the concession extended through 2031. A separate exploration concession covering nearly 61,000 hectares (150,000 acres) was also granted, as the company withdrew its international arbitration case against Thailand.
In 2024, with the global gold price averaging nearly $2,400 per ounce, Akara reported that it produced 50,000 ounces of gold and 530,000 ounces of silver, and planned to scale up to between 95,000 and 120,000 ounces of gold over the next few years.
On the day of our visit, the gold mine is in full swing: from afar, earthmoving trucks can be seen working nonstop to expand the ore-dumping area; four-wheel drive trucks are lined up outside Akara’s field office; vehicles stream in and out as if operations had never paused.
Emilie from the Manushya Foundation says that apart from proper compensation, the villagers’ legal team will call for the closure of the mine’s largest tailings storage facility, which spans about 90 hectares (220 acres) and has a record of leaking chemicals.
“And as the court found that water contamination in the area was caused by the company and that the Thai government — obligated under Article 72 of the Constitution to ensure access to clean water — failed to act, we are considering legal action against the state under this provision,” Emilie says.
While the ruling falls short of what villagers say they deserve, it has restored hope and strengthened their resolve to continue pursuing justice, she adds.
“We will work through the U.N.’s working group on business and human rights to meet with Akara and Kingsgate to explain to them that they need to stop [suing] villagers for speaking the truth and to comply with international standards,” Emilie says.
The villagers will also submit a complaint to the OECD national contact point of Australia to hold Kingsgate accountable.
“For me, the biggest concern is corporate capture. Corporate capture of the lawyers, corporate capture of the judiciary, and corporate capture of the Thai government,” Emilie says.
Mongabay reached out to Cherdsak Utha-aroon, Akara’s general manager for external affairs, seeking a response to these allegations.
He declined to comment.
Thai gold mine blamed for sickening local villagers is set to reopen
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