About 200,000 acres of destroyed forest land reclaimed

BANGKOK, July 3 (TNA) – More than 500,000 rai (or about 200,000 acres) of forest land has been reclaimed from encroachers after the forest reclamation campaign launched by the National council for Peace and Order (NCPO) in 2014, said the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) spokesman Colonel Peerawat Saengthong. He said the government targeted to increase the country’s forest land from 102 million rai (40.8 million acres) to 128 million rai (51.2 million acres) within ten years. Under the campaign, the ISOC, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment the Royal Thai Police Office and related agencies have worked together to crack down on deforestation. According to the agency’s investigation, about 3.09 million rai (1.2 million acres) of forest reserves and national parks and water shed areas were encroached and converted to rubber plantations. The spokesman said the violators unlawfully occupied the forest land against the 1941 forestry law or 1964 forest reserve law and officials implemented the law against wrongdoers, who are influential figures and capitalists. The authorities asked for cooperation from local people not to become a tool of groups of investors and to help the authorities to save the rest of the forest land, which accounts for about 29 per cent of the whole country. (TNA)