The presence of villagers in conservation forests is one of the most troublesome issues facing Thailand. One attempt to solve it - the land reform programme - led to a scandal that has toppled the government.
A previous, more draconian scheme carried out during the military dictatorship of 1991-92 saw soldiers team up with Royal Forestry Department (RFD) officials to force Northeastern villagers out of forest reserves. Environmentalists opposed the khor jor kor resettlement programme because of its brutal nature, and because it seemed designed to benefit vested interests rather than preserve the forests.
But even the figure who finally scrapped khor jor kor - then Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun - argued that the policy to remove some villagers from certain conservation areas was a necessary one; he simply felt it had been poorly implemented.
So it is no surprise that the policy is now back, although this time it is aimed at conserving the northern highlands, which serve as the watershed for the Chao Phraya River and its tributaries. Following several years of severe drought, the forestry department is declaring a whole swathe of new national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in the North.
The villagers living and farming in the highlands - most of them ethnic hilltribes - are under increasing pressure to either reduce their impact on the environment or move out of the area altogether.
At a rally held in Chiang Mai recently to protest this crackdown, hilltribe representatives claimed there are 288 communities comprising around 1.5 million people in the conservation areas, and that as many as 100,000 villagers may be resettled.
Many, perhaps most, of the hilltribes have settled in the area since World War 11. Others have been living there for hundreds of years, and some are still migrating down from neighbouring countries, particularly to escape the strife in Burma. Relatively few have citizenship papers, much less land rights documents.
For the environmental movement, this issue has become increasingly troublesome, because it seems to pit ecological concerns against the human rights of villagers.
Actually, most grass roots non-governmental organizations (NGOS) don't see it
that way. Traditionally the most outspoken defenders of both the environment
and local communities, the NGOs believe the