Contribution of Forestry to Poverty Alleviation - APFNet

In addition, the NESDB drafted the Green Economy Strategy aimed at achieving six main goals, namely:
(i) stop deforestation, increase forest area, manage the expansion of communities in protected areas,
demarcation; (ii) promote economic forests, (iii) promote farm forest patches, (iii) promote sustainable
forest use and conservation, (iv) promote herb production in the forest through a committee that look
after herbs in protected areas.
It should also be noted that the concept of PES, measures to reduce the rate of deforestation under
REDD, and the promotion of reforestation and afforestation are consistent with the principle of
generating income from conservation of natural resources and biodiversity. On PES in Thailand, apart
from the challenges of the PES scheme design, there are legal and institutional hurdles to be crossed.
There is also the major issue of how to create effective demand for conservation measures as opposed
to relying on the goodwill of conservationists, philanthropists, and private sector businesses that want
to be involved as part of their CSR activities.
There are ongoing initiatives that aim to generate lessons and from which a more sustainable policy
framework can be expected, such as Catalyzing Sustainability of Thailand’s Protected Areas System
(CATSPA) and integrated community-based forest and catchment management through an ecosystem
service approach (CBFCM). These look into mechanisms to sustainably manage the forests but which
cannot be separated from the goals of poverty alleviation. More concrete outcomes are expected from
these initiatives than from other interventions from the newly elected government, which is most likely
to be more concerned with economic growth and “reconciliation” policies. The best that one could
expect is that the new government does not intervene with these concrete initiatives to allow them to
follow the planned course.
Recommendations to Improve the Contribution of
Forests to Poverty Alleviation
Based on information reviewed, some of the insights from the case studies and inputs from the
consultation workshop, 9 the recommendations are discussed below in relation to three areas, namely:
(i) legal measures, (ii) the use of economic instruments, and (iii) the value of data to support decisionmaking.
Legal Measures
The function of the laws in defining and protecting the rights to forestry resources is by defining the
rights to access, use, and benefit from natural resources. Legislation may be necessary but insufficient
simply for want of effective enforcement measures. Even if the legitimacy of the State over public land
is questionable, financial and manpower resources are unlikely to be sufficient to provide the scale of
protection of forestry resources required. From the information presented in this report, it is notable that
the legal framework has gradually increased the recognition of the rights of communities. More recently,
we are seeing the evolution of the debate over community forests into the concept of “Community Title
Deeds”. Recommendations on legal aspects, based on discussions with the participants to the national
workshop are:
1. Educate people about existing legislation and regulations. Workshop participants agreed
that people have to be informed about what their legal status is, what their entitlement
9 A workshop was organized on July 8th to present findings and preliminary recommendations to a group
of experts representing various organizations whose mandate is related to management of forestry, land
resources and poverty issues. Present in this workshop were the Executive Board Member of the National
Water Board of Thailand, former Chairman of the National Committee for Solving the Problem of Encroachment
of Public Land, Director of the Land Policy Study Forum, and the former Secretary General of Agricultural
Land Reform Office. Also present were representatives of the Department of National Park, Wildlife and
Plant, Forest Industry Organization, RFD, Biodiversity-Economy Based Development Organization, GIZ, and
the NESDB.
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