Thousands of trees on encroached land cut down

The team, split into three groups equipped with chainsaws and axes, cut the down the six-year-old trees amid rainfall after explaining to the landowners and their relatives that the cases related to 50 rai and it had been finalised, meaning officials were authorised to act.
An informed source reported that officials in the southern province planned to cut down rubber trees on 37,149 rai of land deemed to have encroached on forestland. In this first phrase, rubber trees on 144 plots covering 948 rai would be cut down, the source said.
In Ratchaburi’s Suan Phung district, Army Engineer Department officers, police and forestry officials seize a resort in Tambon Suan Phung after its owner reportedly failed to submit by a March 15 deadline a formal request to the Treasury Department to use the land.
 The department had allowed the resort to use the space since 2012.
Twenty-four other resorts in the district also reportedly failed to file the formal requests and may face a similar fate.