The Nation
Sat, April 10, 1999
The bursting of the
economic bubble has increased the pressure on Thailand’s remaining forests.
A million families
are living illegally in Thai forests, according to the Royal Forest Department,
and the number is growing. The circumstances of their settlement vary greatly.
Some lived in the forests before national parks were declared; some moved in
afterward. Others are still coming. In the eyes of the RFD they are all
encroachers.
Most
of these settlers actually live in forest reserves long since degraded by
logging or cleared for farming. But the bursting of Thailand’s economic bubble
has aggravated the conflict between Man and forest. People who once migrated to
the cities looking for work have now returned to the countryside, where they
find the only untended land belongs to the state. The recent standoff at Dong
Larn in Khon Kaen, where farmers boldly moved into a national park and only
left following intense pressure from the authorities, may be an ominous sign of
battles to come.
Improving
forestry management, along with the related issue of water management, is
probably the biggest environmental issue facing Thailand today. So we
desperately need to find a way in which people can co-exist with the forests.
Or
rather, we need to find many ways. For if there’s one thing that the heated
debate over this issue has revealed, it’s that the problem is far too complex
for a single solution.
There
are simply too many different circumstances surrounding encroachment, too many
reasons for it, too many ways of using the land, and too many legal issues
involved to respond with a single policy. It’s not just a matter of which came
first – villagers or parks. At Dong Larn, for instance, some of the settlers said
they had been promised land under the old khor
jor kor resettlement scheme.
Indeed,
the role of the state in the demise of the forests cannot be understated.
Logging concessions may now be history, but encroachment and forest destruction
are still exacerbated by the roads, dams and other development projects being
built in protected areas.
Conflicts
arising from human impacts on conserved forests will have to be solved
case-by-case, which means that authority over forest areas will have to be
partially decentralised, not just to regional branches of the RFD, but to local
communities. Some version of the Community Forest Bill will have to be passed
to give local people a stake in managing the forests sustainably. This will go
a long way in turning forest encroachers into forest protectors.
“After
we let people get involved, we hope that these people will represent an
electoral voice for conservation,” explains Petipong Pungbun, the permanent
secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture. “It is the only force which can fight
[the power of] money.”
By
the same token, the Community Forest Act should allow for decentralised
decision-making. It should serve as a framework for joint management of
community forest zones by government officials, NGOs and local communities – a system of checks and balances. By
including detailed measures, such as permitting hunting, the current version of
the bill seems too prescriptive. Such decisions need to be negotiated
case-by-case.
Another
controversial issue concerns where community forests should be allowed. The
situation is complicated by the fact that reserved forest areas are being
turned into national parks and wildlife sanctuaries. But since there is clearly
potential for abuse, it seems wise to begin implementation in forest reserves
to see which methods work best.
Where
encroachment is blatantly illegal, meanwhile, authorities should not shy away
from resettlement and the revocation of land deeds – for both rich and poor
alike. Otherwise, law enforcement becomes a joke.
Another
key step to protecting conservation areas is determining their exact borders
once and for all. “We need research. We need an accurate map showing where
people live, where the endangered species are,” explains Petipong. “It’s very
difficult for the RFD to demarcate where protected areas are.”
Forestry
chief Plodprasop Suraswadi has reportedly ordered a gathering of data on land
conflicts all over the country. Decisions will have to be made on which battles
to fight, which forests to save. By consolidating its claims, the RFD may even
be able to persuade some settlers to move out of the most sensitive areas onto
land that is degraded but still fertile.
Plodprasop,
however, has another priority for forest reserves: he wants to use them for
tree plantations. Shrinking Thailand’s timber imports, which total Bt50 billion
annually, is a worthy objective – think of the impact of logging in neighboring
countries – but promoting economic forests often conflicts with the management
of conservation forests. That’s why the conservation agencies need to be
separated out from the RFD. Otherwise, you get scandals such as Suan Paa Kitti,
where a eucalyptus-growing firm was found encroaching on natural forest.
Better
information and a cooperative approach can help us meet another important
objective: using forest resources more sustainably, or finding alternatives. We
all need to work toward this goal, but of course it’s especially crucial for
those living in and around conservation areas. Consider for instance the buffer
zone project being implemented along the periphery of Phu Khiow Wildlife
Sanctuary in Chaiyaphum.
A
key first step was gathering data on the people living in the project area.
Around 92 per cent of the families are rice farmers; 71 per cent have family
members who do seasonal labor; 79 per cent have debt problems. Roughly 85 per
cent of the families collect forest products, which typically accounts for a
third of their income. Collection generally takes place when there is no
farming or labor work available. Certain activities (such as logging, hunting
and incense collection) were found to be much more destructive than others
(gathering fruits, leaves and insects) and outsiders tend to use more
destructive methods than the locals. Destructive collection occurs just as much
in degraded forest reserves as in the wildlife sanctuary, and there seems to be
no linkage between income and the types of product collected.
Based
on this knowledge, several innovative programmes were devised. Forest reserves
are being rehabilitated. Bamboo has been planted in and around the villages as
an alternative to collecting in the forests. Houses, traditionally made of
wood, are now being built using blocks of a soil-cement compound that can
easily be made on site, providing employment for landless villagers in the
process. Ponds were dug to provide irrigation, raise fish and grow other crops
beside rice. These programmes are not unique, but as project coordinator Colin McQuistan of the Thailand
Environment Institute notes, “solutions have to be designed so they are
suitable for the local situation.”
Most
importantly, the project worked to establish trust with the local people and
develop interaction. “Conservation laws have to be enforced,” McQuistan warned.
“It only takes one person to destroy years of work, for instance by causing a
fire.” But under the mosaic buffer zone approach used at Phu Khiow, training
and conservation activities take place throughout the area. There is no
resettlement involved.
This
is in contrast to the traditional buffer zone approach adopted by the RFD along
the periphery of Huay Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, which ran into controversy
when it sought to relocate villagers living within two kilometres of the
border.
By
focusing on the interface where conservation areas meet human society, such
projects can be instrumental in protecting the forest. But the buffer zone
concept isn’t just planted on a strip of territory. It must take root in
people’s minds.