Rubber smallholdings, where rubber trees are grown alongside various local fruit trees, bamboo bushes, herbs and other forest food plants, are set to be destroyed under a government plan to remove settlements from Thailand’s national parks.

According to an article in the Bangkok Post, The real enemy of our forests is the state, local authorities favour commercial plantations where rows of rubber trees stand neatly side by side without any undergrowth.

Kanya Pankiti’s rubber farm in Trang's Ratsada district in the Khao Bantad mountain region of southern Thailand is among those threatened. This ecologically-friendly rubber agroforest has sustained both the green cover and the locals' livelihoods for generations.

Nationwide there are 2,700 forest communities targeted as part of a crackdown on human settlements within national parks. If the crackdown goes as planned, more than a million farm families will be uprooted. Residents argue they have been there long before these areas were rezoned as national parks. Accused of destroying the environment, they claim the opposite; that landslides and flash floods are nearly unheard of in the areas they farm.

The World Agroforestry Centre has done considerable research on smallholder rubber agroforestry systems in Indonesia that are capable of raising incomes and increasing rubber production while retaining biodiversity. To read more, download Rich Rewards for Rubber.