One of the first priorities of the National Council for Peace and Order after the military takeover in May 22 last year, and followed up relentlessly by the government, was to seize back state-owned land from encroachers, particularly that which used to be forest land and had been turned into rubber plantations.
According to Forest Department director-general Thirapat Prayoonsit, there are five million rai of rubber plantations located in forest reserves, national parks and wildlife sanctuaries.
Most of the encroached land, totalling about 4.4 million rai, is under the jurisdiction of the Forest Department. Most of the encroachment cases took place in 2009 when rubber prices were steadily rising.
I still remember when almost every politician and rich businessman "breathed" rubber and wanted to become a rubber plantation owner.
But where to find the empty land to grow rubber trees? The forests! The result was rampant invasion and the worst destruction of forests ever seen just to create rubber plantations.
Of course, the greedy politicians and rich businessmen did not do the dirty work of forest encroachment themselves. They paid poor villagers and farmers to do it for them and then took over the encroached land afterward.
Those a tad more cautious with legal issues sought out the help of corrupt local administrators such as village headmen to arrange for tax payment receipts as a formal recognition they had occupied the land in question.
Despite rampant forest encroachment across the country, crackdowns on encroachers were almost non-existent as the officials did not want to catch the perpetrators. And if there was a crackdown, only the small fry were caught.
This should come as no surprise as every government in the last decade has been supportive of rubber cultivation and tended to look the other way as the country's forests were chopped down or bulldozed.
About four million rai was encroached upon after 2009 and turned into rubber plantations scattered around the country.
I wonder whether the junta would have ordered a crackdown on illegal rubber plantations had the rubber price been as high now as it was back then — more than 100 baht a kilogramme.
The government's objective to seize back rubber plantations from the encroachers, especially the influential ones, is threefold: to stabilise falling rubber prices, reforest the land and allocate some of the seized land to the landless poor.
Originally, it was reported that all of the rubber trees in the seized plantations would be chopped down. However, this has changed as there is increasing opposition to this option.
Chainsawing all the rubber trees and reseeding the empty rubber plantations does not make good sense for a few reasons. First, the cost of chopping down the trees, the removal of the trunks and reforestation.
Second, although rubber plantations are not natural forests in the real sense, they still work in absorbing some water.
Third, if the seized plantations are to be distributed to the landless poor and the rubber trees given the chop, even though the trees can be harvested, the poor will not have any means of making a living as they try to work the empty land.
The latest step is to destroy 60% of the rubber trees and spare the rest. This is a more sensible approach, with the condition attached that the poor must grow other trees on the rest of the land and, at the same time, harvest the remaining rubber trees.
With fewer rubber trees, there will be less rubber production and rubber prices will climb according to the law of supply and demand.
The government has targeted the seizure of 1.4 million rai of rubber plantations in the next two years.
A proposal has recently emerged that the plantations occupied by influential investors should be leased to them on a long-term basis so the government can earn rental fees.
This is not a good idea for the simple reason they are the wrongdoers in the first place and should be dealt with according to the law in respect of forest destruction or abetting forest destruction.
Anyway, I am still waiting to hear from the government when it will start taking back rubber plantations from corrupt politicians and other influential figures and the announcement of their names.
Veera Prateepchaikul is a former editor, Bangkok Post.