CITING NEW CONTRIBUTING FACTORS, ENVIRONMENTALISTS GLOOMY OVER PROSPECTS OF ENDING PROBLEM ANYTIME SOON – LET ALONE IN ONE WEEK

With Potentially high benefits at stake, Thailand is moving toward allowing the harvesting of some tree species, which is currently banned unless special permission is obtained.

LANDOWNERS will be able to cut down up to 171 “reserved” and “rare” timber species growing on their properties without having to seek permission from the authorities, once an amendment to the Forest Act is published in the Royal Gazette in the next two months.

CHEEWAPAP Cheewatham recently stepped down as leader of Thailand’s most powerful forest suppression taskforce, Phaya Prai, after nearly five years at the helm.

Seeking to purge all the “bad apples”, the Royal Forest Department (RFD) is trying to determine whether six of its officials recently sacked for selling protected phayung (Siamese rosewood) to a Chinese investor had links to a transnational logging and smuggling gang and whether any other officials were involved.

Somsak Saelao’s community of Pang Kob is isolated, situated close to the top of the Khun Nan mountain, and follows the traditional way of life of the Hmong hilltribe.

SOMSAK SAE-LAO, an assistant village chief in the small Nan community of Pang Kob, still has no idea whether his villagers could be subject to any benefits for helping protect surrounding forest under a global scheme known as REDD+, if implemented here.

THE ROYAL Forestry Department is going after some people who had released three letters accusing its former deputy director-general of being involved in bribery in a high-profile logging case for his promotion to the position of director-general.

The Royal Forestry Department (RFD) has sacked another forest patrol officer, this time in Kamphaeng Phet province, after a teak log was found to have fallen from a pickup truck allegedly driven by him during a chase.

CPK INTERNATIONAL, on whose board Italian-Thai Development president Premchai Karnasuta sits as a director, has been threatened with a civil lawsuit by the Royal Forestry Department.

Park defenders deserve better pay and welfare benefits for policing country’s resources, say experts

LAW REFORM, PUBLIC PARTICIPATION REQUIRED TO ENSURE PRESERVATION OF FOREST LANDS, SAYS FORESTRY CHIEF

PHUKET: A team of officials from the Royal Forestry Department (RFD) on Monday visited four ziplining facilities in Phuket and uncovered one allegedly guilty of forest encroachment.

The government has initiated a new forest-protection operations centre to crack down on encroachment and exploitation. New director Athapol Charoenshunsa, who heads the Royal Forestry Department (RFD)’s Forest Protection and Fire Control Bureau, tells The Sunday Nation’s Piyaporn Wongruang why the new agency is desperately needed.

A new forest protection operation center has been established to pull together all relevant agencies and laws to suppress influential figures who have exploited state forests and resources.