<p dir="ltr">After three years of the junta’s ‘returning happiness’ mission, the country’s poor and ethnic minorities are still suffering from the junta’s ‘return the forest’ policy while the junta opens up more land for investors and cuts environmental regulations for big business.</p> <p></p>

<p>The Thai authorities have accused three villagers in Chaiyaphum Province in Isaan, northeastern Thailand, of trespassing in a National Park.</p>

<p dir="ltr">Local people are to be evicted in the name of development, as the Thai junta invokes its absolute power to clear land for the benefit of big businesses.</p> <p></p>

<p>A Provincial Court in northern Thailand has acquitted a Hmong man accused by national park officers of encroaching into a protected area.</p> <p><a href="https://tlhr2014.wordpress.com/2016/05/26/hmong_paivillager/">Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR)</a>&nbsp;reported that the Provincial Court of the northern province of Mae Hong Son on Wednesday, 25 May 2016, acquitted Su Wangpoh, a 58-year-old Hmong from Pai District of the province.</p>

<p>A land rights activist and leader of an embattled village community in the northeastern (Isan) province of Chaiyaphum has reportedly been missing for five days.</p>

<div> <div>Poor people across the country continue to be affected from the junta’s policy to reclaim protected areas. The latest eviction, without any relocation plan, involves 800 families in six villages in the northeastern province of Chaiyaphum.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Villagers who live in the protected area of Sai Thong National Park, Wang Takhe Sub-district, Nong Bua Rawe District, have been facing a state campaign to evict them since June 2014. </div></div>

<p dir="ltr">Thai authorities have issued notifications urging villagers allegedly encroaching into a protected area in Esaan, Thailand’s Northeast, to move out or risk eviction and charges.</p>

<p>The Provincial Court of the northeastern province of Sakon Nakhon has sent two villagers to prison for encroaching into national forest reserves while six others received suspended jail terms. &nbsp;</p>

<p>The people of Thailand’s northeast, or Isan, continue to suffer from the Thai junta’s forest protection policies despite the authorities’ confirmation that there would be no evictions from protected areas for the time being. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

<p dir="ltr">The court in Isan, Thailand’s Northeast, tried a rubber farmer accused of growing rubber trees in national park’s land plots. &nbsp;</p> <p>According to Chai Thongdeenok, a member of Thai Ban Phuraisit Sakon Nakhon, a local group which promotes land rights for the locals in the northeastern province of Sakon Nakhon, the court on Wednesday held a witness examination hearing of Sin Ngoenpakdee, a villager of Chad-Rabeab Village of Phu Phan District in the province.</p>

<p>A civil society organisation for poor communities in Thailand has rejected the jumta’s community forest bill, saying that landless communities will still suffer if the bill is enacted. &nbsp;</p>

<p>The Thai authorities in Isan, Thailand’s Northeast, have announced a plan to reforest extensive areas amid concerns from the poor, who fear that the policy might affect their livelihoods. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>Boonsong Techamanisatit, Governor of the northeastern province of Sakon Nakhon, on Tuesday morning announced a new policy to reclaim about 15,700 rai (25.12 sq.km) of land in an attempt to reforest areas in Phu Phan National Park, Phu Pha Lek National Park, and other protected forests in the province.</p>