Owing to the fact that, government has formulated forest polices and implemented them on their own ways; but local stakeholders are unaware of it.
This reflects a hug gap between policy and practice. One way to see the gap between policy and practice is by comparing the guideline with what was carried out (Zolala and Haghdoost, 2011). On the basis of above stated policy details, we have tried to list the observation practices at the local level shown in (table 1).
Table 1 : Policy practices on diverse forest management approaches
Practices in the field Governance
indicators SorPorKor/INPANG
Community Forestry National Park
Clarity on policies No information exists on government related policies and documents
Policy supporting adaptive
management No adaptive management in policy formation;
however localsembrace adaptive forest management according to existing social norm and values.
No scope for adaptive forest management
Consistency of laws with international obligations Confiding to international obligations has
jeopardized forest dependent population by declaring world heritage sites.
Possiblethrough declaring conservation area.
Extent to Law recognizing property and carbon rights Has right to harvest and
manage;no sale rights.
And locals are following the provisions
Likely to pursue property and carbon rights if community bill gets endorsed No such rights given.
Extent of conflict resolution mechanism Smaller conflicts managed by community.
Conflicts requiring government’s attention are unsolved
No such mechanisms;
obligatory to park rules
Extent of forest mandates and agencies supportive No co-ordination
among these SorPorKor agencies
Not supportive; reason for unsuccessful community forest bill Supportive ;
but no consideration to indigenous people
Adequacy of budgets and resources Past experiences on project lacks sustainability
Regular budgets; no provisions for indigenous people
Availability information, technology and tools
Very less information flows and technology tools. Forest policies written in complex language not available outside Bangkok.
The locals residing inside the park have no access.
Equity to rights and rents Equitable at local level
Openness resource allocation
Unknown at national provision; practice openness at community level through their own means
No such provisions given for indigenous people residing inside the national park
Participation in planning Participation in operational planning no
involvement in constitutional and policy planning There is no public
consultation process
Transparency Local users are highly transparent on resource
allocation and operational planning.
No transparency mechanisms.
In order to document the relative differences on the degree of policy practices;
focus group discussions signed an index value from 3 (maximum) to 0 (minimum) for each site. For the sites with no difference in national level policies and practices on the field the minimum value was assigned and vice versa. These index values were presented in provincial level meetings and triangulated with experts.
Table 2 : Policy practice gapIndex
Practices in the field
Governance indicators SorPorKor/
Inpang Community
Forestry National
Park National
Policy Provisions
Clarity on policies 0
2 0
No clarity
Policy supporting adaptive management 2
2 Does not 0
support
Consistency of laws with international obligations 1
1 2
Consistent
Extent to Law recognizing property and carbon rights 2
1.5 Does not 0
recognize
Extent of conflict resolution mechanism 1
1 1
No conflict resolution mechanism
Extent of forest mandates and agencies supportive
1 0
2.5
Adequacy of budgets and resources 1
1 2.5
Supportive for National Park
Availability information, technology and tools 0.5
0.5 Least 0
available
Equity to rights and rents
2 2
0 Not equitable
Openness resource allocation
1 1
Does not 0 exist
Participation in planning 2
2 No 0
participation
Transparency 2
2 Does not 0
exist
Average 1.29
1.33 0.67
The huge policy application gaps are seen especially in the national park areas.
Thai Forest dependent communities are capable of undertaking good practices in forest management but they should be brought up in the planning process.At present, some 1.2 to 2 million people are reported to be living in and around protected areas (national parks and wildlife sanctuaries) and rely on forests for livelihoods ("FCPF", 2011). In addition, another 20 to 25 million people are reported to live near national forest reserves and use them for forest products both for household consumption and to sell them in markets for cash income (Witchawutipong, 2005). For the sake of conservation the livelihood of these
forests dependent people are taken away. Increased forest encroachment and not being able to establish forest bill has led to question of feasibility of REDD+.
REDD+ requires local communities, local organization, government and civil society to come together. Of the whole country, there are more than ten thousand villages which involved in managing community forest, of which 7,090 communities are reported to have formally registered with the RFD, covered the area of 400,000 hectares ("FCPF", 2011). Community forest organizations have built up their networks in each region and formed their network at national level that includes ethnic groups. The national community forest network is an important stakeholder for participation in the national REDD+ mechanism. But the current community forestry under the RFD is quite likely to create problems leading to management and land use conflict.
REDD+ itself is new topic and with such complexities inefficiency in policy compliance is almost sure and may foresee corruption. Likewise, overlapping, complexity and contractions in responsibility of forest agencies accordingly increases transaction cost due to ineffectively use of power. Secure forest tenure along with clearly defined forest carbon rights provides incentive to manage forest effectively. Local forest dependent population have been settled in forest for a longer period of time and bear skills to identify biodiversity to be preserved, products to be utilized and know traditional ways to protect against fire. This knowledge should be effectively incorporated in forest governance and policy. If the right is given to local people they will have an opportunity of applying this knowledge. To make sure that the forest laws and acts have fulfilled the required objective there should be monitoring and timely assessment should be conducted.
REDD+ is probably coordinated and managed by the national governments, promoted by public and private actors, and cooperation with government agencies or through mutual combination of both (Corbera and Schroeder, 2011).
But as per the Thai policy provisions REDD+ is likely to be benefited only to the government as it does not encourage local stakeholder to participate in the REDD process. The institutions and organizations that managed the forest are ill- equipped to overcome the challenges of global transformations. There requires a system that can transcend from national boundaries, interconnect different governance levels and allows both traditional and modern policy actors to cooperate. Such system emphasizes integration of both formal and informal rules making mechanism and actor linkages in every governance stages which steer towards adapting and mitigating to local and global environmental change (Corbera and Schroeder, 2011). Recognizing REDD+ governance requires understanding of organization, norms, institutions and decision making
mechanisms (Biermann et al, 2010), and examines performance and effectiveness in relations to reducing emissions. But Thai government fails to do so; instead it considers indigenous institutions as the primary drivers of deforestation.
Conclusion
Thailand forest polices are determined by central government where the needs and problems of people living inside the national park is not addressed. Though government have identified national park as the potential piloting site for REDD+ implementation, the real issues is not taken under consideration. The supportive document based on which the government is undertaking REDD+ is full of discrepancies and irregularities. There are so many policies that are formed that overlap with each other and create situation of confusion and make situation chaotic.Overlapping and complexities can increase transaction cost in law enforcement, requires further investigation and information. Most of these policies are ad hoc and no adaptive learning process involved. Disputes between community groups and forestry officials is common and rather than having a strong conflict resolution mechanism, conflict related to boundary gets lingered at court and most of these courts are not in reach of resource poor. This situation is further aggravated by overlapping of administrative function and inconsistent government development agendas. There are no good governance features in forestry sector prominent through lack of equity and participation in forest resource allocation. Especially these discrepancies are more in national park.
REDD+ mechanisms cannot be implemented successfully with the available provisions in the policy. Especially, the practice gap is more with the National Park/Conservation area. This prominently shows that RPP has been formed without rigorous consultation with diverse stakeholders. Rather than focusing on formulating new policies attempt should be made to monitor the effectiveness of existing policies. However, small holders are contributors to sustainable forest management in Thailand. They are contributing to carbon sequestering carbon through managing small area plantations and restoring the degraded land through SorPorKor /Inpang networks and community forestry; whereby the local traditional ways of forest conservation is being used. Though the link of these SorPorKor and Inpang network is unknown; but can aid in REDD+
initiative because the practices is based on the principles of free prior and informed consent and social safeguards. But the challenge involves around monitoring at small areas especially at geographically dispersed areas.
Government initiative in promoting these small holders can involve using GIS and satellite data to aggregate plantations under community based management.
Acknowledgement
This paper is the part of study research funded by Toyota Foundation. The author would like to thank Toyota Foundation for the financial grant.
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