Deforestation in Thailand

[1] The department claims that forest coverage grew by 330,000 rai in 2018, an area equivalent in size to the island of Phuket.

[4] An estimate by the World Wildlife Fund concluded that between 1973 and 2009, 43% of forest loss in the Greater Mekong subregion occurred in Thailand and Vietnam.

[5] The Thai Highlands in northern Thailand, the most heavily forested region of the country, were not subject to central government control and settlement until the second half of the 19th century when British timber firms, notably the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation and the Borneo Company Limited, entered the teak trade in the late-1880s and early-1890s.

[18] Thailand is a nation where over 80% of land is owned by the richest 10% of the population[19] and where property rights are ambiguous and are often interpreted differently by the various branches of the Thai government.

The inability of many Thai citizens to secure property has resulted in their turning to forests to find space to farm.

King Bhumibol Adulyadej has blamed the destruction of Thailand's forested areas on the greed of some state officials.

This is evident in places such as large protected swathes of northern Nan Province that were formerly covered with virgin forest and that have been deforested even while having national park status.

[22] Given that a mature, 30 year-old Siamese rosewood tree can fetch 300,000 baht on the black market, illegal logging is unlikely to disappear.

[7] As awareness of this behavior's ramifications for the climate became better known, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries have attempted reforestation efforts to address the harm caused.

[11] The decline in Thailand's forest coverage has resulted in shifts in local temperatures, changes in patterns of seasonal rainfall, and soil erosion.