Community forests, once hailed as a crucial mechanism for expanding Thailand's forested areas and enhancing local involvement in forest management, now face significant threats due to the 2019 Community Forest Act.
Originally envisioned to empower local communities, the Act has been criticized for the lack of public input in its drafting and its centralization of power, which local advocates argue undermines its very purpose. Enacted without sufficient community engagement, the law prioritizes Bangkok's control over local needs and imposes restrictions that limit local involvement in forest conservation.
Local advocates are calling for a more decentralized approach that would return power to local administrative organizations (LAOs) and communities, allowing them a greater role in the management and establishment of community forests. The shift would enable more local involvement and ensure that the local populations benefit from their forest resources.
Community Forests in Decline
The concept of community forests was first introduced in Thailand in the late 1980s as an antidote to the suppressive approach to forest conservation, which focused on separating people from nature and often led to land disputes between the government and local communities.
As part of the National Economic and Social Development Plans, the Royal Forest Department played a significant role in spreading the concept by providing training for local communities, supported by universities and international organizations, including the UNDP, FAO, SIDA, and the Ford Foundation.
Since the first official establishment of community forests in 1999, the total area of community forests peaked at around 10,000 square kilometres in 2018, increasing by an average of 746 square kilometres per year from 2013, according to the Environmental Monitoring and Evaluation Division, Office Of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning.
RECOFTC Thailand reported that community forests represented around 6% of the total forest area as of 2020. However, Thailand saw a decline in community forest area of an average of 35 square kilometres per year between 2018 and 2022. This reverse coincided with the enactment of the Community Forest Act in 2019.
Khao Rao Thian Thong Community Forest in Noen Kham District, Chai Nat Province, one of the first community forests in Thailand. (Source: Royal Forest Department)
The Royal Forest Department successfully established community forests for the first time on 21 December 1999. The three sites were:
1. Khao Rao Thian Thong Community Forest, Moo 10, Noen Kham Subdistrict, Noen Kham District, Chai Nat Province
2. Pang Kanun Community Forest, Moo 6, Na Bo Kham Subdistrict, Mueang District, Kamphaeng Phet Province
3. Khao Wang Yiam Community Forest, Moo 9, Na Bo Kham Subdistrict, Mueang District, Kamphaeng Phet Province
Before the 2019 Community Forest Act , the Royal Forest Department made use of legal provisions under Section 19 of the National Reserved Forests Act of 1964 and Section 17(2) of the Forest Act of 1941 to establish these community forests. These sections provided the legal framework for permitting certain activities within reserved forests, allowing the Department to authorize the establishment and management of community forests.
This success was the result of a decade-long process. The concept was first incorporated into the 6th National Economic and Social Development Plan (1987-1991), which focused on providing training at the grassroots level. The 7th Plan (1992-1996) then institutionalized the concept within the government system. These efforts laid the foundation for the significant expansion of community forests decades later.
Before the concept of community forests existed, there was the Forest Village Project, which aimed to relocate scattered populations in national parks into designated agricultural areas to conserve and restore the remaining forest. There was also the Volunteer Tree Planting Project, where trees were planted around schools, temples, roadsides, public areas, scout camps, and government offices. These efforts, however, were much less systematic.
At Odds with Its Purpose
Pramote Phonphinyo, Advisor of the Northeast Land Reform Network. Source: Prachatai
There are growing concerns among academics and members of civil society that the 2019 Community Forest Act needs to be amended or even revoked. The government under Gen. Prayut Chan-o-cha, which passed the law, was known for rejecting local participation in decision-making processes.
Pramote Phonphinyo, an advisor to the Northeast Land Reform Network, pointed out that the Act prohibits the establishment of community forests in protected areas such as national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, significantly limiting where these forests can be designated.
To register a community forest under the new Act, it must, among other things, meet criteria and conditions set by a policy committee chaired by a deputy prime minister and other high-ranking government officials who may not have a deep understanding of local communities.
Chaipong Samniang, an academic at the Social Research Institute of Chiang Mai University, wrote that some communities could lose control over the forests they have nurtured for decades if these forests overlap with protected areas or fail to meet criteria set by outsiders, which is often the case.
It appears that the Community Forest Law is not only making it harder for local communities to establish new community forests but also poses a significant threat to many existing ones, contradicting the very objectives it was meant to achieve.
"Ultimately, it goes back to the definition of community forests and the management ideas, which were not fully developed when the draft law was being pushed,” said Pramote. “When the law came out during a period when the country wasn’t a democracy, the participation of the villagers was cut out, giving people no chance to participate."
Resource Restrictions
Pramote said that there are also issues with the use of forest resources. The Community Forest Act restricts the use of key forest resources, particularly timber, arguing that these resources should be conserved at all costs, even prohibiting their use for building homes or essential community structures.
A report by Voices for Mekong Forest stated that while the Act is a crucial step in recognizing community forests, there are significant legal gaps. For instance, community members are permitted to use forest products only for subsistence, with commercial use strictly prohibited.
Somnuck Jongmeewasin, Advisor to the House of Representatives Committee on Land, Natural Resources and Environment (Source: Prachatai Archive)
Somnuck Jongmeewasin, an advisor to the House of Representatives' Committee on Land, Natural Resources and Environment, said that while local communities face restrictions, 30-year forest concessions are still granted to outside investors in forests managed by the central government.
“This Act appears to decentralize power, but when you look deeper, it actually pulls power back to the centre,” said Somnuck. “So this Community Forest Act, instead of solving the problems that have existed in the past, has become a constraint on the people and the locality.”
Even the use of community forests requires permission from the Provincial Community Forest Committee, which is mostly composed of officials appointed in Bangkok. Local communities and LAOs are a small minority on the committees.
These restrictions and bureaucratic hurdles contrast with the very principle of community forests, which aims to empower local populations to sustainably manage their environment and benefit directly from their forest resources.
Seeing no point in maintaining them, or perhaps confused by the process, as of January last year, many local communities did not submit their forest management plans for approval as required by the Act, resulting in the revocation of 196 community forests.
Some communities also requested the abolition of their community forests, reallocating the land for other purposes, including power plants, infrastructure projects, or even temples, although these cases may be less clear-cut.
The Missing Role of Local Governance
In the past, local administrative organizations (LAOs) and villagers held significant authority over their community forest areas. They wrote and enforced their own rules, known as 'local good governance,' rather than relying on rigid state-imposed regulations.
Under the current law, they have lost control not only over the establishment of community forests to the Policy Committee in Bangkok but also over the use of their forest resources to the Provincial Community Forest Committees, despite having more knowledge of their own areas.
If their requests are ever approved, they are subject to strict regulations. Section 6 outlines specific purposes for all community forests. A particularly problematic requirement is the ‘encouragement of collaboration of all parties,’ which diminishes the autonomy of LAOs and local communities.
The LAOs have the advantage of being closest to local populations and delivering the most tangible outcomes in their areas. Somnuck suggests that the law should be amended section by section, returning power to LAOs and local communities.
'The regulations written within the Act should be minimal, leaving LAOs and people in the area to draft the regulations,” said Somnuck. “No one knows better than the people in the area. Don’t let the Community Forest Act itself become an obstacle to establishing community forests.'
Pramote agrees. “When local people and communities have no right to act according to their own definition of community forests, it seems that the state has drawn lines preventing this Community Forest Act from achieving its true goals. And it will only cause more problems in the future.”
• Section 4 defines community forests as "forests outside protected forest areas or other state lands outside protected forest areas that have been approved to be established as community forests," which creates additional obstacles to establishing community forests.
• Section 6 outlines specific purposes for all community forests, such as forest conservation, reforestation, and cultural diversity in sustainable management. It also requires “encouragement of collaboration with all parties,” which downplays the role of local administrative organizations (LAOs) and local communities who are most directly involved.
• Section 9 establishes the Community Forest Policy Committee, also known as the Policy Committee, chaired by a deputy prime minister and made up of other high-ranking government officials and experts who may not have a deep understanding of local communities. This Committee is responsible for making policy recommendations to the Cabinet and approving the members of Provincial Community Forest Committees.
• Section 23 establishes Provincial Community Forest Committees, whose members include provincial officials appointed in Bangkok, and even representatives from the Ministry of Defence and the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office. The LAOs and local communities are only a small minority on the committees.
• Section 32 states in its last paragraph that "the criteria, procedures, and conditions for establishing and approving community forests must comply with regulations set by the Policy Committee," giving power to high-ranking officials rather than local administrative organizations and the communities that manage these forests.
Source: The 2019 Community Forest Act.
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