No, we're not talking about felling trees to build homes for officials in the forests. That's peanuts. We're talking about forestry policies which systemically destroy the forests.

Like the absurd policy of clear felling for massive pine and eucalyptus farms which dry up underground water and destroy biological diversity. Like negligence for graft among the rank and file which erodes field workers' morale and performance. Like its latest policy to open national parks for tourism money.

Forestry boss Plodprasop Suraswadi has reportedly ordered national park chiefs to find beautiful spots in their areas so they can be developed into tourist attractions. Apart from opening new tourism spots, the Forestry Department plans to lease out some national park areas - where human intrusion is barred by law - to tourism businesses.

This outrageous policy came as no surprise given the Forestry Department's long history of autocracy, forest exploitation and mismanagement. Here is an agency which wrote the law to give itself full power as owner and manager of the forests. Let's look at what it did with its power in the past year alone.

The Salween corruption scam confirms common knowledge of close connections between top forestry officials and illegal loggers.

When the Klity lead mine in Thung Yai forest persistently released toxic water into a waterway, the Forestry Department kept silent.

Meanwhile, it continues to allow mining activities in other forest areas while hiding its head in the sand when large tracts of pristine, ecologically vulnerable forests are destroyed by the Yadana gas pipeline.

Forest land continues to be leased out cheaply to tree plantation investors. Early this month, the heart of Dong Yai forest in Buri Ram province was destroyed to make way for a commercial eucalyptus farm.

A few months ago, Mr Plodprasop promised to investigate claims the chief of Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary had "ghost" workers on his books, pocketing wages of more than 500,000 baht a month. The public heard nothing.

Many believe this sort of corruption is common in other forest jurisdictions. The infamy is that the bosses are fat while forest rangers and field workers get meagre wages and payment is often delayed as long as six months.

And just a few weeks ago, the Forestry Department faced a public uproar over its plan to build luxury guesthouses in the heart of Huay Kha Khaeng, a World Heritage Site.

While the Forestry Department kowtows to money, its policy in regards to the poor is consistently militaristic and discriminatory.

You may still remember the Kor Jor Kor atrocity in 1991 when the Forestry Department borrowed military might to evict inhabitants of forests once and for all. The Palong hill people in Chiang Mai experienced a similar crackdown this year. And more forest communities are bound to suffer following the June 30 cabinet decision which returns full powers of eviction to the Forestry Department.

The message is clear. Tycoons can use the forest. The poor cannot.

The national-park-for-sale policy is the latest confirmation that the power-clinging Forestry Department is not the custodian of our forest. It is the chief assassin of the forests.

* Sanitsuda Ekachai is Assistant Editor, Bangkok Post. sanitsuda@bangkokpost.net