Forestry in Thailand

The Kingdom of Thailand is located in the south-eastern part of continental Asia, bordered by Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Malaysia. It has a land area of 51 million hectares and a population of 63 million people. In the 1980s and 1990s, Thailand’s economy was one of the fastest growing in the world, but this coincided with the rapid depletion of its natural resources. The forests in Thailand consist of evergreen montane forests (Dipterocarp spp.), mixed deciduous monsoon forest (teak) and dry dipterocarp savannah forest in remote mountain valleys. Valleys and plains are totally cultivated. Plantation forestry is also well developed.

The country’s Royal Forestry Department, established in 1896, dates to a time of great political and social change in Siam. However, in the history of Thailand deforestation has been rapid - particularly in the 70′s and 80′s. In the mid 70′s, deforestation rate was about 500 000 hectares annually. Thailand's forested area declined from 53% of the nation's land area in 1961 to only 28% by 2000, mainly as a result of the continued use of slash-and-burn practices by farmers. Of Thailand's 14 million ha of forest, about 56% lies in the north, where teak and pine predominate. Rubber trees, planted mostly in the south, make up 10% of the forest area. Teak, once a major export, has declined in importance, largely because of government restrictions on cutting and past depletion of the forests through excessive harvesting and inadequate replanting of this species. 

Plantations in Thailand total about 3 million ha with the major species being teak, rubber wood, Eucalyptus spp; Acacia mangium and Pinus merkusii. Annual round wood is estimated at about 40 million m3. 

In 1980′s tree planting started to spread on individually owned farmland mainly due to the emergence of the pulp and paper industries in the north east of the country, as well as the development of the very profitable rubber wood industry in the southern parts of Thailand.

Today, processing operations rely primarily on rubber wood plantations, imports of logs and lumber and illegal domestic harvesting for their supplies. Rubber wood is extremely well utilised in Thailand, with this species now having effectively replaced many of the traditional hardwoods used in the past. Rubber wood now makes up 70% of exported furniture volumes. The over rubber wood saw mills in Thailand consume over 1.2 million m3 of logs per year.

Lac, a resinous insect substance found on trees, has always had value for the Thai, but its derivatives—seedlac, sticklac, and shellac—have also found a ready international market. Many consumers are well familiar with Shellac, but very few people are aware of the origin of this product we often use for wood treatment (primers, high gloss and mat polishes).

In FSC certified forests, the safety, social and environmental standards meet international norms. Harvesting operations in Thailand are very labour-intensive. Felling is mostly done by chainsaw, while logs are extracted manually. As harvesting contractors are generally small operations, the transport systems are quite primitive, with light LDVs often used to remove logs to the processing facilities.