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Published on November 23, 2007

In a statement, the network said the law focused more on state authority than on the rights of communities to join the state in managing forest areas.  "This act has demoralised people who have played a key role in conserving forests, preventing forest fires and stopping forest encroachment," the statement said.

The network called for people in power to seek a ruling from the Constitution Tribunal on whether the act clashed with the new charter, which gives communities the right to participate in the management, conservation and use of natural resources and their local environment to promote balance and sustainability.

The Community Forest Act sailed through the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) on Wednesday.

The network said yesterday all forest community networks across the country would organise forums to ask political parties to review the law if their members are elected in the upcoming poll.

Buntoon Srethasirote, who sat on an NLA ad-hoc committee that looked at the bill, said yesterday the Community Forest Act would bar many people who had long protected the forest from using resources in forests.  "So many communities have been in forest neighbourhoods but they have taken care of forests for so long. Through the Community Forest Act, these communities will lose their rights to the forest," Buntoon said.

He said many networks also questioned whether Section 34 of the Act, which allows forest communities to use only bamboo and scrap wood, was too strict.

The Nation