With the blessing of the National Council for Peace and Order, the Royal Forest Department intends over the next two years to seize back one million rai of former forest that has been encroached on, cleared and planted in rubber.
This one million rai is just one-quarter of the area of what was once forest reserve land that has been illegally taken over and planted in rubber trees. The rapid proliferation of rubber plantations, which were originally limited to the southern region, began less than a decade ago, when rubber prices were steadily on the rise -- reaching over 180 baht a kilo for the best quality in February 2011. At its peak, rubber trees were the "golden" commercial crop that almost every aspiring investor wanted a share of – many of them local and national politicians. Today, rubber plantation owners are happy if they can get 60 baht a kilo for their rubber sheet. It seems the good old days have gone and no one can predict when, or even if, they will return. The governments of the time supported the expansion of rubber farming and did not seem to care whether the plantations were encroaching on forest reserves. Hill after hill of thick forest was laid bare and replanted with rubber saplings. And still the various governments did not bother to take any action. Everyone seemed to talk, eat and breathe rubber. But that was yesterday. Today is a different story. Many plantation owners do not even bother to hire workers to tap the trees for latex, because the returns from rubber may not be worth the cost. The rubber price slump aside, the encroached land must be reclaimed and the Royal Forest Department must act quickly, otherwise it may forever lose the chance. Without the backing of the NCPO, I doubt the department alone would even face off against the influential figures who own the plantations, let alone win the battle. If the political roadmap remains unchanged, there will be an election next year and the NCPO’s term will soon afterwards come to an end. No elected government is likely to court trouble and put its stability at risk by reclaiming one million rai or more of land back from the encroachers. Taking back one million rai of land will affect a lot of people and is much different from reclaiming 100 rai or so of encroached land in Khao Yai, as manifested in the Bonanza resort case, or other land cases in Phuket or Suan Poeng district of Ratchaburi. The Royal Forest Department said it would chop down all the rubber trees in the encroached areas classified as A1 and A2 watersheds, and restore them to their natural conditions. That is a herculian task for a department which has, for years, always complained of being understaffed and underbudgeted. An even more complicated task is to distribute the seized land to the landless poor. Without proper planning and budgeting, with technical and infrastructure support to help these poor people, they would not be able to survive and make a living on the land.