Photos courtesy of Bangkok Post
The government plans to give disadvantaged forest communities the right to live on 5 million rai of land under a new scheme aimed at solving problems with encroachment.
Read the following story from the Bangkok Post to learn more about this proposal.
Royal Forest Department chief Theerapat Prayurasiddhi said villagers who have been living in forest areas since before a 1998 cabinet resolution will be first in line for the new land rights proposal. The 1998 resolution stated that locals living in the forest prior to that date could continue to do so until any new government policy supersedes the agreement.
COMMUNITY ZONES
Theerapat said that the department is surveying forest zones to be allocated under the scheme. The land might be taken from areas that were illegally occupied until recently. It might also include forest land on which villagers already live or expired palm and rubber concessions.
“The exact amount of land has not been calculated yet, but it will not be more than five million rai,” Theerapat said, adding that land rights will be issued to whole communities rather than individuals. Once land ownership is issued to communities, they will not be able to transfer it to outsiders, Theerapat said.
According to Theerapat, the 1998 resolution was originally made to address problems with forest land encroachment. He estimated that 600,000 villagers had settled in the forest before 1998.
OFFICIAL RECOGNITION
Theerapat said that special legislation will be drawn up to recognise forest communities as part of the scheme. The regulations will prohibit improper development in forest zones, such as the construction of resorts or buildings for tourists. A range of activities that risk harming the environment will also banned.
“We want the communities to be environmentally friendly so we are discussing what kind of activities can be allowed on the land after it is allocated,” Theerapat said.
LASTING SOLUTIONS
The department is preparing details of the plans to submit to a national land committee chaired by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha. The government previously instructed relevant state agencies to help find unused land to allocate to disadvantaged people as part of a drive to help the landless poor. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives are working to find lasting solutions for these issues by next year.
Exercises
Specify whether each of the following words is used in the story as a noun, verb, adjective or adverb.
1. friendly
………………
2. locals
………………
3. recently
………………
4. settled
………………
Vocabulary
- encroachment (n): the act of gradually taking over more and more of an area of land that doesn’t legally belong to you
supersede (v): to take the place of something that is considered to be out of date or no longer the best available
outsider (n): a person who is not part of a particular group, society, etc.
landless (adj): not owning land for farming
