Order to hand over forest land annulled

On Monday, some 200 FIO employees protested in front of the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry over Minister Suwit Khunkitti's order for the FIO to hand over the land.

They said it would lead to dissolution of the state enterprise and 2,500 employees losing their jobs. Earlier, some 1,000 FIO labour union members staged a similar rally outside Parliament.

The ministry's permanent secretary, Saksit Tridech, said yesterday he had ordered the forest department chief to sign the cancellation, affirming it had nothing to do with the FIO board. Saksit said he did not know about the claim that the land was needed for economic reforestation under the department's Thai Khemkaeng scheme.

An order for the Forest Industry Organisation (FIO) to return 900,000 rai of forest land to the Royal Forest Department's care within 30 days from January 5 has been cancelled, a senior official said yesterday.

An inside source, however, said the labour union remained unhappy despite the hand-over cancellation - one of its three demands. The main concern, Suwit's order to stall the forest land's use, remains in effect and disables the FIO from using the forestland anyway.

FIO labour union adviser Sanchai Buranont said they wanted Suwit to scrap all three orders imposed on the FIO. The other two are to stall the forest land's use and to postpone consideration on reforestation of the plots under the FIO's care.

He said the 900,000-rai land hand-over order had also convinced them that Suwit intended to dissolve the state enterprise, which has 1,150,000 rai of forest land under its care.