<p>The &quot;Forest Reclamation Policy,&rdquo; led to regulations to stop encroachment on forest resources in 2014. Enforcement resulted in more than 46,000 villagers around the country being arrested and sued. &nbsp;Most were villagers who lived on, or had land plots that overlapped with, forest preserve areas in various ways.</p>

<p>In news reports less than 10 years ago, the new problem of PM2.5 dust was added to news items in the Thai media of forest fires and the problem of haze caused by forest fires and crop burning. This has led to a clear concrete policy shift, since it has a direct impact on the lives of the middle class in the country&rsquo;s large cities, especially major centres like Bangkok and tourist spots like Chiang Mai Province. With an unidentifiable origin, smog, forest fires and PM2.5 have by implication become the same thing.</p>

<p>Northeast villagers get jail terms with big fines under NCPO&#39;s Forest Reclamation Policy.</p>

<p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-18496adf-351d-7488-26e9-6ec202ae1095">The Assembly of the Poor, a Thai civil society organisation, issued a statement condemning the Thai junta’s eviction of poor communities and urging international organisations to pressure the regime to protect human rights. &nbsp;</span></p>

<div> <div>The military on Sunday detained four people, including Prapart Pintobtang, a political scientist from Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, who organized a walking rally against the junta’s policy to reclaim protected areas, which has heavily affected the poor.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>After they started the rally by walking about 50 metres from Suan Dok temple in central Chiang Mai, the military detained the four in a military prison vehicle. </div></div>

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