Community forest

Watchara Kumpai, 68, spends most of his time in boots, stomping through coastal mangrove forests in southern Thailand. He used to work in the tin mining and logging industries that contributed to mangrove loss, until all concessions in mangrove areas were cancelled in 1991. Today, Watchara is dedicated ...

One afternoon at the end of 2017, officials in Dakrong district in Central Vietnam’s Quang Tri province visited Ho Thi Nieng’s house. They claimed she and her husband had “burned the protected forest to do farming.” “We had been cultivating that land for a long time ...

Like many locals, Matthana Abhaimoon left rural Thailand to study in the city. Unlike most, she chose to come back – and fight for her right to farm in the forest as her forefathers had done. After a 20-year campaign, residents of Mae Tha won a ...

Local residents tasked with protecting the 100-hectare Linh forest are doing their job well, minimizing human destruction including logging and other harmful activities.  Classified as a special forest that serves nothing but conservation purpose, Linh stands beside Hien Thanh and Vinh Hoa communes in Vinh Linh ...

Srongpol Chantharueang remembers his parents telling him as a boy always to protect the local wetland forest when he grew up. They told him that the ecosystem would be important for his life and that of his community. “I didn’t understand what they meant at ...

The forests are rapidly dwindling. But the people living in forest areas need to live off the land. Supporting them to practise sustainable or green farming saves both the forests and the locals’ livelihoods. Why then is this win-win solution only applied to some local ...

The Siem Reap provincial Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries called on citizens to stop stealing forest land belonging to the state. It said village, commune and district authorities should cooperate to protect forest land in the province. Department director Tea Kimsoth told The Post on ...

The Southern Border Provinces Administrative Center (SBPAC) is joining hands with the Royal Forest Department and other relevant agencies in rehabilitating and upgrading community forests in the Deep South in order to generate employment and income for local residents. SBPAC Secretary-General Rear Admiral Somkiat Pholprayoon said ...

A recent report by the Regional Community Forestry Training Centre (RECOFTC) said villagers living around Srepok Wildlife Sanctuary had recently reported illegal loggers in the forest and they took action by seizing some of the perpetrators’ chainsaws. The area is protected by the government and the ...

Clear-cutting forests may provide short-term monetary gains, but the true costs of mass deforestation could be steep.  The novel coronavirus that has caused the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic is believed to be zoonotic, meaning it first spread from animals to humans. Not only is that a common ...