Pardoning forest dwellers convicted of encroaching on state land may ultimately benefit rich developers, critics warned after the House of Representatives approved two amnesty bills in principle.
Among those voicing concern over the amnesty, which would cover communities in conflict with the government’s forest-reclamation policy or overlapping national forests, were the conservationist Seub Nakhasathien Foundation, the National Parks Association of Thailand and former senior officials of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.
The two bills were proposed separately by People’s Party MP Laofang Bundidterdsakul and Prachachat Party MP Sugarno Matha.
“Both bills fail to clearly define who is eligible for the amnesty,” the Seub Nakhasathien Foundation said in an open letter of protest. It pointed out that their content could be interpreted so broadly that even wealthy encroachers could use them as a legal loophole to evade punishment.
“This means investors or influential figures will be able to get away with grabbing more areas of the country’s forest,” the foundation warned. The letter also noted that the amnesty proposed by the bills would apply retroactively as far back as 1954.
It complained that the two draft laws focused so heavily on local forest communities that they overlooked the principles needed to maintain sufficient green cover to support the country’s ecosystem.
According to national policy, 40% of Thailand’s geographical area must remain forested. However, as of last year, only 31.46% of the country had tree cover. Statistics show that forests are being decimated in many areas of the country, mostly to human exploitation and lax law enforcement.
Chaiwat Limlikit-aksorn, a former director of the Office of National Parks, said he was opposed to both bills because they contained loopholes that would benefit investors and wrongdoers instead of the public.
“These bills were drafted to help the public, especially the poor. But, due to the loopholes, forestland may end up in the hands of developers,” he said, citing large tracts of forests in eastern Thailand being cut down for durian orchards.
He said the well-established irrigation systems in these orchards demonstrated that the owners were rich landowners rather than subsistence farmers.
However, “poor people are being used as nominees for the land takeover”, Chaiwat said.
Protecting people’s rights
Pol Colonel Tawee Sodsong, chair of the House ad-hoc committee reviewing the bills, defended them as well-intentioned, insisting that their aim is to help people who have lost land rights or were granted the right to live on state-owned land.
“Many families have been living in forest zones long before they were declared national parks,” Tawee said. “In other words, their rights were violated when their land plots were suddenly declared to be owned by the state.”
He added that affected families have the right to seek legal remedies against the government’s claim. He also urged critics not to assume that forest dwellers damaged the environment.
“If you visit their communities, you will see that their areas are still full of trees,” he said.
The network of communities affected by the government’s forest-reclamation policy stated that its members have lived on certain plots for generations, long before their rights were no longer recognised by the government. Thai authorities have launched more than 48,000 forest-encroachment cases since 2014.
“We are the victims here,” the network said.
Kittipat Jainok, a resident of Ban Thai Samakee Community in Nakhon Ratchasima’s Wang Nam Khiao district, said his father died of heart failure just three days before he was due to appear in court on August 28.
“He had just learned that a neighbour had been found guilty of encroachment by the Supreme court and sentenced to two years in prison and fined 200,000 baht,” he said.
He added that his father, like many others in the community, was among the first accused of forest encroachment in 2011, despite their families having lived in the area long before it was designated a national park.
“We now want justice,” he said, expressing support for the bills.
Surachat Boonchiratiwat, a resident of Wang Nuea district in Lampang province, said more than 600 families in his area have been affected by the government’s forest-reclamation policy.
“Our life security suddenly disappeared and many people have died or fallen ill due to stress,” he said.
Many young people in the community also lost access to education because their parents were suddenly left without homes or livelihoods, he added.
“We cannot work on our farms, so we have no income and the debts pile up,” he said.
Krissana Srisamphan, a forest dweller facing similar issues in Ubon Ratchathani’s Don Mod Daeng district, said she had inherited the land from her parents and had even been compensated by the government when the price of cassava slumped in 2009
“But in 2016, my rights were taken away and now I don’t know what to do,” she said, adding that she has nowhere to go after the government declared she had no rights to his family’s land.
“All I can hope for now is to be allowed to continue farming it,” he said.
What experts say
Assoc Prof Dr Surasak Boonrueang, a law lecturer at Thammasat University’s Lampang campus, said there is still a way to improve the bills to minimise exploitation while protecting the rights of those who genuinely deserve amnesty.
“The big loophole comes from the fact that no limit has been set on the size of land eligible for amnesty. However, lawmakers can address this before the bills become law,” he said.
He also recommended clarifying the fine print to ensure exploitative developers do not benefit, and that the pardon covered not just criminal but also civil liability.
“If the bills are improved in the right way, the legislation will help the poor without negative consequences,” Surasak said.
