Royal Forest Department
The Royal Forest Department is a department in the Ministry of Natural [Resources and Environment |Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment], part of the Government of Thailand.
History
On 18 September 1896 King Chulalongkorn established the Royal Forest Department under the Ministry of the Interior to manage forests and control revenue from the teak forests of northern Thailand. A British forester, Herbert Slade, former Deputy Conservator of Forests in Burma, served as the first director of the department. In its early days the department focused on obtaining tax revenue for the use of forests rather than conservation, although its conservators expressed concern about unsustainable harvesting of teak in Thailand's northern forests. In 1899 all forests were declared government property and all logging without payment to the Royal Forest Department was prohibited.Formerly the agency controlled List of [national parks of Thailand|Thailand's national parks] but in 2002 they were taken over by the Department of [National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation|National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department], also part of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.
Today, the agency aims to monitor forests, coordinate research, encourage community forest management, conserve forest land and monitor the wood industry.