Thailand

The recent study “Rights of rubber farmers in Thailand under free trade”, by Ms Sayamol Kaiyoorawong and Ms Bandita Yangdee, [http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Thailand/Rights_of_rubber_farmers_in_Thailand.pdf],makes a thorough review of the whole rubber business and its actors in that country.

Old proposals of damming the Lower Mekong River were revived recently. According to press releases from the Thailand-based NGO TERRA, the governments of Lao PDR, Cambodia and Thailand have granted permission to Thai, Malaysian and Chinese companies, to conduct feasibility studies for up to six large hydro dams on the lower Mekong. Ten years ago the projects had been dismissed for their huge cost and potential environmental damage.

The National Legislative Assembly (NLA), set up after the military coup in Thailand last year and due to be disbanded following the general election on 23 December, has, in its dying breaths, approved the long awaited Community Forest Bill. Rather than consolidating the constitutional rights of all communities to manage their forest areas however, the NLA chose instead to exclude the rights of communities who are living outside the “conservation zones” to take part in forest management.

Advance Agro is one of Thailand's largest pulp and paper companies, producing 427,000 tonnes of pulp and 470,000 tonnes of paper a year. The company markets its "Double A" brand of photocopy paper with a series of environmental claims. In May 2007, an Australian company called Access Economics added to these claims with a report titled "Environmental Benefits of Double A Paper".

The Thai government has set its policy on producing palm oil-based biodiesel as energy. At present, the country’s large-scale oil palm harvest areas account to around 400,000 hectares, but since 2006, a discourse on oil palm has emerged to promote its plantation as a “renewable source of energy”, a “country savior”, a “reforestation scheme”, a “wind-protection zone”, and a “transformation of deserted rice fields into palm fields”.

Large-scale rubber, oil palm, eucalyptus and pine tree plantations are being promoted by governments in Cambodia, China, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. However, affected villagers are openly protesting against them. At a meeting held last month in Cambodia we learned that local communities are strongly opposing these plans because they see that these plantations are encroaching on their lands and impacting on their livelihoods.

“During our time together, we heard directly from local community representatives from twelve provinces in Cambodia and also from other countries in the region about how their lives, livelihoods and environments are affected by large plantations in their respective areas.”

Aung Ngyeh, a 31 year old Karenni, fled to Thailand in 2002, forced out of his home in Karenni State by the Burmese military’s war against ethnic populations. He now lives in the refugee camp along the Thai border working with the Karenni Development Research Group (KDRG) campaigning to stop foreign investment in the Burmese regime’s “development” projects.

Can people co-exist with forests? This nagging question will come to the fore once again if the controversial community forest bill makes it to Parliament for a final vote. This is a case of asking the wrong question. If we really want to protect the remaining forests that have survived a series of state plundering, a different question must be asked: Can our forests survive state mismanagement and exploitation if we don't allow people's participation and public monitoring?

Phrue has been walking for 49 days. Together with ninety eight companions, he set out on the 7th of November on an epic march from Chiang Mai to Bangkok to save the people's component of Thailand's Community Forest Bill (CFB). The bill, originally advanced by farmer organizations and NGOs to enable communities to protect their forests, is now in danger of being twisted into its opposite. In September 2005, the committee overseeing the drafting of the bill decided to prohibit community forests in special conservation zones (see WRM Bulletin 99).

In a recent outburst of “environmental enthusiasm” stimulated by generous financial offerings from the Global Environment Facility, the Thai government has been creating national parks as fast as the Royal Forest Department can map them. Ten years ago there was barely a park to be found in Thailand, and because those few that existed were unmarked "paper parks," few Thais even knew they were there. Now there are 114 land parks and 24 marine parks on the map.

In an ironic twist, Thailand’s Community Forest Bill intended as a formal framework to define rights of communities to co-manage forest areas now threatens to resettle rural communities especially ethnic peoples living in the uplands and conservation forest areas.