In Thailand, both the army and civilian governments define forests as “wilderness free of inhabitants”, neglecting that tropical forests have always been home to indigenous and peasant communities. Laws have marked local people as illegal encroachers, allowing forced evictions as the primary measure to “preserve the land” – often that meant installing monoculture plantations. Forest officials have intensified a crackdown on forest communities that are calling for change in forest management by pushing ahead with a grand reforestation plan that may lead to an even bigger scale of forced evictions than previous such government reforestation plans.
Read full article: http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/430545/
