Reclamation of forest land 'has had mixed results'
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WHILE the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) has a good policy to reclaim forestland from encroachers, landless and underprivileged people have sadly been the first group to bear the brunt of its implementation.
People have been forced off forest-land, which has been their home for decades. But when these people lived in forests, they did not really harm them. So even though the NCPO has impressed the public with its tough stance against encroachment, many non-government groups believe the NCPO-installed government should get a failing grade.
The NCPO has, of course, achieved something. On April 24, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said since the NCPO came to power last May, the country had successfully reclaimed 35.34 million rai (5.4 million hectares) of forest.
The public has seen the authorities taking action against businesses accused of encroachment, such as Pak Chong-based Bonanza International Speedway and rubber plantations in the South.
With soldiers chopping down rubber trees in areas that were encroached on, investors will have to think twice before trying to claim state forestland.
Still, in the eyes of some NGOs, government strategies cannot really implement reforestation successfully, because they end up hurting landless people.
“As far as I’ve known, forest areas have not really increased. Even worse is the fact that the NCPO and this government have failed to adequately provide justice to people who lived in forests long before the establishment of national parks and preserved forest,” Prayong Doklamyai from the People’s Movement for a Just Society said.
He said implementation of NCPO Order No 64/2557, which was issued last June, resulted in more than 1,000 unfair evictions.
He believed the NCPO may have had good intentions, pointing out that the order aimed to stop deforestation, while it issued Order No 66/2557 to exempt the poor, landless people who lived in forest areas from evictions.
‘Poor people suffered most’
However, Prayong said he could not ignore the fact that officials in charge of implementing the policy appeared to ignore Order No 66/2557 and took harsh action against poor people, so as to perpetuate evictions.
“The problem with implementing Order No 64/2557 is that the authorities cannot separate the poor and landless people from the wealthy who encroach on forests, just like they can’t separate an eel from a snake,” he said.
Nid Tortun said Bo Kaew, his village in Chaiyaphum, was one of many communities across the country which faced problems from implementation of the NCPO’s reforestation policy.
“Since the NCPO came to power, our village has been harassed by the forest rangers, who threatened to evict our community,” Nid said.
“We insist that we are not destroying forest like the government said. We are managing land as a community plot and we also have common rules for the community members to use and preserve the forest,” he said.
Another worrying government policy was the decision to allow people back on land if an aerial photograph from 1952 to 1956 showed it was occupied, Prayong said.
“What if the original owners then sell the returned plots to capitalists?” he asked.
He believed that the designation of critical zones for forestry master plans in 18 provinces was also not relevant to the reality of the situation, as most of the zones were more than 40 per cent covered by forests.
“In contrast, many provinces, mostly in the central region, which used to have some areas of forest but [those forests] are now long gone, did not appear in the critical zones list,” he said.
He had doubts over how successful the reforestation campaign will be.
But on a positive note, Prayong said the government’s move to grant landless people the right to use community forests was good.
“This is the right approach,” he said.
In April, the PM granted 7,282 rai within the Khun Mae Tha national conserved forest area for this purpose.
The project has three phases. The government will hand over 53,697 rai in four provinces in the first phase, 51,929 rai in eight provinces in the second phase and 50,018 rai in 17 provinces in the third phase.
Prayong suggested the government should respond to land dispute problems by imposing a land tax on a progressive rate for landowners who have more than 50 rai.
Income from this tax should be used to set up a land bank for allocating land to the poor, he said.
