Suphanburi community forest voted nation’s best

 
The forest in Dan Chang district received a Bt200,000 community forest conservation fund.
The National Community Forest Award and HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn’s Trophy are part of a “Love the Forest and Community 2016. programme. Some 138 award-winning community forests participated in the Ninth National Community Forest Contest. 
It was conducted by The Royal Forest Department (RFD), in partnership with Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding Public Company Limited (RATCH).
The judges said Baan Pu Namron Community Forest reflected its achievement in implementing comprehensive forest management alongside community engagement of households, temples, schools, and local agencies.
By relying on local beliefs, tradition, and culture as an effective strategy, the community created a strong network to raise awareness of the incomparable value of forests and took action to rehabilitate degraded forest areas from the granite mining concessions and deforestation due to charcoal production.
The forest’s conservationists have recovered degraded areas of land by planting trees ranging from banyan, coral tree, Schleichera oleosa, olive, Afzelia xylocarpa, Burmese Padauk, rosewood, Thyrsostachys Siamensis Gamble, and ground-covering plants such as wild yam, Kaempferia galanga Linn, fern,and crops and herbs to encourage bio-diversity in these areas.
In addition, members of the community helped to develop the community forest areas to become an eco-tourism destination and natural-learning resource. Chum Nanta, who serves as the chairperson for the community forest committee, leads Baan Pu Namron Community Forest.
Chonlatit Suratsawadee, director general of the Royal Forest Department, said the RFD has focused on implementing a strategy to increase effective prevention and protection of forests in areas under the responsibility of the RFD. “Consequently, we have long-term forest resource management and development plans with an emphasis on the formalization of private-sector engagement in developing a mutual forest management plan to benefit the country sustainably”. 
In 2008, a partnership between the RFD and RATCH initiated the ‘Love the Forest and Community’ project with an aim to encourage and maintain community forest areas, bring balance to forest ecosystems, and provide successful pilot community forests as models of sustainable forest management.
At present, the RFD has registered 9,874 community forests, covering an area of 4,727,470 rai. This represents significant gains of 11 times from 2008 and 16 per cent rise from 2015 on forest growth respectively, he said.
Rum Herabat, RATCH CEO, said the company had set a clear approach for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and this would mitigate the effects of climate change while responding to the government’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals.
One approach the company is undertaking is to promote forest |carbon storage. The company has supported the RFD’s community |forest programme as another effective tool to maintain national |forest areas and promote sustainable living based on efficient |community forest usage.
The Love the Forest and Community project represents a joint effort between the company and RFD, with the objective to increase registration of national community forests and expand the community forest network nationwide – an effective approach to maintain and protect Thailand’s forested areas.