Kultida Samabuddhi

State sector reform has muddled forest management because it divides the activity between two ministries, Forestry chief Plodprasop Suraswadi said yesterday.

Under the Bureaucratic Restructuring Bill, passed by the House on Tuesday, forest management is split between the Agriculture and Cooperatives and the Natural Resources and Environment ministries.

The Agriculture Ministry's Forestry Department would oversee parts of the forest reserve identified as ``economic forest'', including forest plantations and community forest.

Meanwhile, a new Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Flora under the proposed Ministry of Natural Resources to look after national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and protected forest under ministerial orders, such as non-hunting zones, wetlands, mangrove forests.

Mr Plodprasop disagreed with the structure, which was proposed by the Senate, saying that segregation of natural forest into economic and conservation zones would increase conflicts in forest use.

``Under the new structure, forests would be managed under two extreme approaches, commercial exploitation and preservation. Some parts of the forest would be heavily exploited, while protected forest would be strongly preserved,'' said Mr Plodprasop.

Community forests would be prohibited in protected areas, covering around 80-100 million rai, because these were preserved for conservation purposes only, he said.

``I am worried that forest management will turn to chaos because dividing forests into economic, agriculture and conservation zones is confusing and inaccurate,'' Mr Plodprasop said

The department planned to move around 7,000 forestry staff to the new Department of National Parks, while the remaining 1,000 staff would stay with the new Forestry Department.

Mr Plodprasop backed a proposal by Deputy Agriculture Minister Praphat Panyachartrak for a joint panel to better define the ministries' workloads after the changes began on Tuesday.

Bangkok senator Kaewsan Atiphothi said it was better to segregate forest management into economic and conservation purposes than to mix them up under the one agency.

``In the past, state agencies concerned themselves only with managing forest for economic growth. Under the new structure, management for conservation purposes would be emphasised as much as commercial exploitation,'' said Mr Kaewsan.

Conflicts were unlikely to arise between the ministries as their responsibilities had already been clarified under the bill.