Small Voices, Real Actions of People in Forests
Similar to other ethnic groups, people of Hmong at Ban Pang Kob living in the buffer zone of Doi Phu Kha National Park and Khun Nan National Park are entirely dependent on the forests. Their livelihoods and food security from surrounding forests are now facing threats from impacts of climate change and become insecure from the state’s designation of reserved forests and the ministerial regulations[1], which basically aim to increase areas of the forest cover and green zone, but fail to properly recognise customary rules and tenure rights of local communities to own, use, and access forest resources.
“I was not aware of the government announcement. I did not apply for rights on agriculture lands in the forest reserves. We were forced to relocate outside the forest reserves,” said Somsak Sae Lao, assistant village headman of Ban Pang Kob. He had been struggled with forest officials over land conflict since 1998.
Somsak and his villagers are rice farmers and supplement their livelihoods with collection of non-timber forest products . Located in the Dong Phaya Tambon Administrative Office (TAO), his village is only accessible via a 20-minute unpaved road by a pickup truck or motorbike.
About 20 percent of the country’s 56,000 villages locate or 1.2 million people live within forest reserves.[2] The problem has been rooted in the process of villagers’ encroachment of forest lands for shifting and rotational cultivation and overlapping claims. At present, most land conflicts are concentrated on widespread land titling in forest areas, of which underlying causes include policy ambiguity, bureaucratic overlap, usage of forest lands prior to declaration as forest reserves, and new in-migration due to land pressure and scarcity. Insecurity over land rights in forest areas is among critical issues of forest governance.
Despite the government has attempted to decentralise its forestry functions and authority, changes in land allocation and uses by the state have caused resistance for years and efforts of non-state actors and civic groups to protect their land rights.
There is a need to balance people’s rights to lands and access to natural resource use.
Under the current government, the National Land Allocation Policy Committee has been set up and proposed to resolve the issue of overlapping rights, known as Khor Tor Chor. The main policy is to allocate lands to the landless poors living in the forest reserves.
Beyond that the Royal Forest Department has obliged to unlock legislation and basic rights of those who live in the forests before national parks demarcation.
“We are looking at all concerns and public reforms to ensure that forest communities are able to make a living and forest areas are increased,” said Attaphol Charoenchansa, acting director general of the Thai Royal Forest Department at the forum in Nan.
Standing next to the village model developed in 2007, Somsak explained his approach with pride, “Now we have set clear boundaries: housing areas, agriculture zone, forests for community use, and forests for sacred rituals. We also have village rules to manage and protect our trees to grow.” His ambition is to be heard by the state and legally certified that they have customary rights to use natural resources and live in the forest reserves.
At present, financial assistance under the national decentralised program through TAO has improved the condition of this village, including electricity access to the village and the village’s water purifier tanks, etc. The relationship with Tambon authorities and forest officials has also improved.
The proof of villagers’ active participation is, not only to show the village boundaries, but also to ensure sustainability of forests through initiatives, such as building wild fire resistance, and to survey standing biomass to monitor carbon stock which are parts of the Forest Governance Monitoring System (FGMS) implemented by the Voices for Mekong Forests (V4MF) project.
“I know the impacts of climate change. This area can grow better quality of rice because it is warmer. I decided to participate in the [V4MF] project to protect the forests because trees provide us clean air. I want to protect them,” Somsak responded to us.
To address challenges and opportunities on FGMS in Thailand, V4MF is working with various stakeholders, particularly non-state actors and communities, to develop mechanism and enabling environment to strengthen forest governance system both at the landscape and local levels. Two pilot areas are in the buffer zone of Doi Phu Kha National Park and Khun Nan National Park in Nan province and of the Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary in Uthai Thani province.
According to the ground-breaking research of Thailand’s forest governance, major governance issues persist for years on unsecured land tenure rights, unclear rights over forest resources, unreliable enforcement of the laws, poor coordination among forestry agencies, and the complexity of forestry procedures. This is exacerbated by overlapping and duplicate policies and laws, which leads to arbitrary enforcement and increases mistrust between authorities and forest communities.
Two main international initiatives provide opportunities to strengthen forest governance, notably the EU Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) action plan, and the UN Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+). To implement these programmes, inclusive and transparent multi-stakeholder participatory processes as well as legal and institutional reform are essential.
Since late 2013, Thailand has officially started the formal VPA process with the EU. The official negotiations took place in June 2017 and August 2018. Its success will significantly depend upon multi-stakeholder participation in the VPA process.
Similarly, apart from the national level approach, the national forest monitoring system and the social and environmental safeguards are key approaches that require inclusive multi-stakeholder group participation and actions to leading the path to reduce emissions from deforestation.
The regional V4MF research findings also shed light on recommendations for countries in the Mekong Region to develop national FGMS to address challenges on implementation, compliance, and enforcement of forest governance laws, which allows each nation to achieve its commitment in intended Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) target. Thailand has set its intended NDC target to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions by 110–140 million tonnes of carbon or 20–25 percent by 2030 from the 2005 baseline.
The Voices for Mekong Forests (V4MF), a five-year (2017–2021) project supported by European Union, aims to empower non-state actors and communities in transboundary landscapes assessment, monitoring and response to strengthen forest governance, particularly in FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreement and REDD+. East-West Management Institution — Open Development Initiatives (EWMI-ODI) is one of international partners supporting the V4MF project implementation. EWMI-ODI seek partnership opportunities to promote forest governance and support the global SDGs achievement.
Author:
Based in Bangkok, Thailand, Saowalak Jingjungvisut is a Partnerships and Communications Manager for Open Development Thailand under East-West Management Institute — Open Development Initiatives (EWMI-ODI). Any views expressed here are her own.
Keywords:
Forest governance; community forest; land rights; climate change; FLEGT VPA; REDD+; Thai minorities.
— — — — — — — — — — — — —
[1] In particular, Ministerial Regulation on June 30th, 1998, has put pressure and affected forest-dwelling ethnic minorities who are less educated and poor. The Ministerial Regulation on June 30th, 1998 in Thai is available at http://www.dnp.go.th/watershed/gov2.htm#6.
[2] Patrick Durst. FAO. Thailand Forestry Outlook Study. Asia-Pacific Forestry Sector Outlook Study II: Working Paper No. APFSOS II/WP/2009/22. Bangkok. 2009.
