LEGAL MEASURES FOR AGRICULTURAL LAND REFORM AND NATIONAL RESERVED FOREST PROTECTION

Abstract

Forests are vital for national development as a source of genetic resources used in the industrial ecotourism sector. Yet in Thailand, forest areas have decreased rapidly and continuously, with degraded land in national forest reserves implementing agricultural land reform. Is this supposed solution for lack of arable land and forest encroachment suitable for Thailand, where the population and the demand for farmland are increasing but forest areas are decreasing? This research studies the legal role in granting governmental authority to seize deteriorated land in national reserved for agricultural land reform. The goal is to provide policy and legal recommendations for land use in national forests during agricultural land reform.

A comparative study was made of land types that the government intends to use in agricultural land reform and relevant land types used in foreign countries to provide arable land. Results were that the initial spirit of the Agricultural Land Reform Act B.E. 2518 (1975; The Land Reform Act) sought to use private land for agricultural land reform to conserve forest areas for sustainable use. This left no motive for encroaching on additional forest areas, with the goal to allow the government to use such land to carry out land reform in future. The government should therefore no longer use degraded national forest land for agricultural land reform and repeal Section 26 (4) of the Land Reform Act.