Teak Forest Garden in Thailand

The documents are from the official website of Forestry Industrial Organization of Thailand

http://www.fio.co.th/

1. Thai teak : The expensive wood in the world market 
               Teak is an economically valuable wood in Thailand due to high quality. It is needed by foreign countries. It is a multi-purpose wood it used to build a house, every part of it can be used from the floor column to the roof, even in place of the tile used for roof. Moreover, it is very durable with sunlight and rain resistance, without any termite. The wood is soft and can be easily crafted. Its color is beautiful and can be used for house construction with long working life. Several temples in northern region are made from the teak. Although their lives are over 400 years, they are in a good condition. 
                Teak's name in botany is Tectona grandis with a Sanskit name of Sakka with a trade name of Teak coming from Teca, which means sweetheart of carpenter. It can be said that European very prefer teak Whether Thai teak is best or not, Prof. Dr. Amnuay  Khowanitch, an expert of teak and teak garden planting by forest village system who is accepted by forestry academics around the world, provides information concerning Thai teak as follows "the competitors of Thailand regarding teak are Burma and Indonesia. But 25% of Burmese's teaks cut are gold teaks, while 75% of Thailand's teaks cut are gold teaks. For Indonesia, its teaks are inferior to ours due to short timbers with dusky-color woods and not beautiful. The sales price in foreign countries is 30-40% lower than ours". This is the data showing that Thai teak is in high level of quality and can be competitive in the world market.                 

    

2. Thai teak sources in the part : Teak Forest (34 Teak) in the Upper Northern Region B.E. 2500 Prof. Dr. Loetsch's  inventory of Five Main Teak - Bearing Province. B.E. 2499/2500 (Chiangmai, Chaingrai, Lampang, and Phrae) Teak resources are surveyed and it is found that five provinces have more teaks.  

1. Five provinces, namely, Chiangmai, Chaingrai, Lamphun, Lampang, and Phrae, have total area of 61,010 square Kilometers (38 million rais). 
2. Forest area which is lower then 1,000 meters from the sea surface level, a level of teak growing and the real teak flourishing area is 26,540 square kilometers (16.5 million rais or 43% of 61,010 square kilometer's area). 
3. Five provinces have teaks densely growing approximately 20,259 square kilometers (13 million rais or 33% of 61,010 square kilometer's area) 30 cm high or above, with growing stock of 12 million cubic meters and increment of 300,000 cubic meters per year (0.025 cubic meters per year). But 590,862 cubic meters of them are cut a year (legally 270,763 cubic meters and illegally 320,098 cubic meters) or 2 times of increment, which use up the cost every year. By calculation, the teak has 12 million cubic meter's cost which will be zeroed in the next 40 years or 1987 (B.E. 2530) which is near teak forest cancellation B.E. 2532. 

Characteristics of land forest concession of the government (Teak) Note :  1)  Some parts of 43 teak forest concessions are returned on account of upstream forest and forest closing for stabilization as per Cabinet's resolution B.E. 2520. The teak concessions remain approximately 34 teaks. Accordingly, it Thailand invests in planting mega project of economic teak to employ 1 million family in the old teak forest concessions which are currently out of capacity in the number of 15 million rais in 5 important provinces of the upper northern region, mountains, rivers, and soils are abundant and will return to the northern region which was prosperous in the part. 

 
 
 

Teak concession information in the past is as follows

 
 
 

3.. Demand for wood consumption of Thailand and teak planting for swift growth :   

 

       3.1 Demand for wood consumption of Thailand (million cubic meters): 
          

 From information of demand for domestic wood consumption in B.E. 2545 in the number of 18.5 million cubic meters which is every type of wood consumption, which if 10% of teak is computed, the figure of demand for teak will be about 1.8 million cubic meters per annum. 
          3.2 Planting the teak for quick growth and sufficiency in short-term period : 
          Thai teak is a large shedding tree in Verbenaceae family. By nature, its trunk is high with strong base. Its top is widely with small branches spreading around the trunk. It has a core or center in quadrilateral shape having its origin from India Peninsula only, That is, India, Burma, and Thailand. It is a high-qualified teak. The rest is of the secondary quality (teak in Thailand is classified as per quality and price of wood from high to low as follows: 1. Gold Teak, 2. Black-Striped Teak, 3. Stalk Teak, and 4. Buffalo Dung Teak). 
          Teak will grow in an appropriate condition. At the early stage, it will rapidly grow. Newly grown teak aged 2 years or above in a good soil condition and with suitable air will be 5-10 feet tall or above. Plots for good-qualified teak trial-growing in Thailand will be grown and extended by tissue culture system aged 4.5 years, with circumference of 45 cm long (figure 1), and aged 12 years, with 105 cm long and 18 meters hige. 
 

12 years tissue culcure teak under natural conditions, G.B.H. at 105 cm. , 22 m. height  
 
 
 

4 1/2 years old teak tissue culcure plantation, G.B.H. at 45 cm.

4. Teak Forest Garden: From Past to Present

In the part, Thailand was a good-qualified teak resource with area more then 25 million rais generating teaks for domestic consumption and exportation in exchange of currencies for country development over 500,000 cubic meters per annum. Currently, almost all of Thai teak resources are determined to be conservation areas (most are national parks and wild life conservation areas). The remainders are deteriorated teak forests (sanctuaries), which are closed and the teaks cannot be lawfully taken of out the forests. 
          Teak forest rehabilitation in Thailand has a profile as follows: 
          In B.E. 2488, Royal Forest Department tried planting teak forests by using Taunya system at Phrae Province, a Burmese method of practically planting the teaks. 
          In B.E. 2485, Royal Forest Department earnestly and continually planted teak forest garden. It prepared planting plots and wood sprouts aged 1 year at the four large places, namely: 1) Suan Sak Huay Thark, Ngao District, Lampang Province, 2) Suan Sak Mae Ta, LongDistrict, Phrae Province, 3) Suan Sak Huay Rai, Den Chai District, Phrae Province, and 4) Suan Sak Tha Chai, Sawankkalok District, Sukhothai Province, by growing 800 rais per annum. This era of teak garden plantation used human labors and local equipment, such as knife, axe, and saw without any machine usage. It employed 150-200 labors per unit with 40 -satang daily wage. The workers had to use their own instrument on working. Simple shacks were built in forest garden area with 2x2 meter's areas. In B.E. 2525, Prof. Dr. Amnuay  Khovanitch, a former Director of The Forest Industry Organization surveyed forest gardens with 40 years of ages planted in B.E. 2485 at Suan Sak Mae Ta and Suan Pa Mae Jua, Phrae province and found that the teaks grown had GBH sizes of 190-210 cm (current price is approximately 20,000 baht per cubic meter or 25,000 baht per tree). 
          In B.E. 2510, The Forest Industry Organization (FIO), a state enterprise, was approved by Cabinet to grow teak gardens so as to give assistance to Royal Forest Department and to be raw materials for the factories of FIO. When teak planted could be cut, FIO could cut them for sale as revenues of FIO. Teak garden planting was done by using the teak's roots as defined by Royal Forestry Department and developed by Modified Tuangya System or Forest Village System. It is different from the old system, that is, it would stipulate agriculturists to gather themselves at the same place which had public utilities, namely, road, water supply, electricity, health center, temple, school and farm crop transportation to the market without any charge. And the members will be employed as labor forces in planting and nourishing the forest garden before external villages at the local rate by specifying that the round of period of teak cutting was 60 years and by planting with 4x4 meter's space to be able to use machinery such as tractor and grass mowing machine. The first period of the project was 6 units in the upper northern region with 1,000-rai growing per annum, having members of 100 families per unit. All of the six forest gardens were Suan Sak Mae Thung Kwian, Suan Sak Mae Jang, and Suan Sak Mae Mai, located in Lampang Province, Suan Sak Kra Yang situated in Phitsanulok province, and Suan Sak Khun Mae Kham located in Phrae Province. 
          The Thai Plywood Co., Ltd., the 100% share of whichwas held by FIO, grew teak gardens with the system similar to FIO at the same time.

In B.E. 2535, the government issued Forest Garden Act B.E. 2535 to promote people to plant forest gardens with subsidy of 3,000 baht per rai causing teak gardens in this period to rather much extend with a cooperation with private sector to grown teak gardens in from of modern agricultural teak garden for sale to those who were interested and it reduced during B.E. 2540 resulting from economic regression of Thailand (IMF Era). And the budget concerning forest garden reforestation of Royal Forestry Department was tremendously cut. Teak garden building during B.E. 2535 and afterwards used new technologies to develop and augment teak garden products, for instance, sprinkling fertilizer, using dropping water system, extending teak breed without any gender by tissue culture approach, and rooting a cutting. 
          From concise history of teak garden growing in Thailand, it is found that teak garden with age over 25 years which can be used is planted by public sectors, i.e., Royal Forestry Department, FIO, and The Thai Plywood Co., Ltd. For forest garden planted after Forest Garden Act B.E. 2535, small teaks aged under 10 years could not industrially utilized. Information with regard to teak garden planting in Thailand was rarely discovered and was in form of approximated figures without any forest inventory research to support it. The supporting information is as follows:Sources: Royal Forest Department and The Forest Industry Organization. 
 

 

         Sources : Royal Forest Department and The Forest Industry Organization.

From the table, it is found that Thailand spent 97-year period to plant 3.3-million-rai teak gardens with 201 million teaks and 16.38 million cubic meter's capacity. With forest garden areas at present, it can be estimated that the teaks are exactly insufficient for consumption at present and in the future. Since 1.7-million-rai teak gardens of Royal Department with ages more than 25 years and can be consumed and most are determined to be conservation areas which cannot be utilized. For 1.05-million-rai small teak gardens with ages under 10 years, they can be slightly usable. They are merely teak gardens of FIO and The Thai Plywood Co., Ltd., in the number of 0.56 million rais that can produce the woods. It is estimated that the wood products from distant extension and the wood reaching the round of cutting aged 35 years are 70,000 cubic meters per annum, while demand for domestic teak consumption of Thailand is over 6-fold of current products. 
           Teak forest garden price in B.E. 2545 is somewhat high because wood factories in locality and Bangkok accept the following price:

Table showing FIO forest garden teak price B.E. 2545 (aged over 15 years)

 

          Note: From modern teak reforestation by using good breed, taking fertilizer, plowing the ground, breaking up the ground, extracting the branch, cutting and extending the period as appropriate, teak will be 75 cm wide and 15 m. tall within 15-20 years. 
 

 
 

     How many teaks Thailand ought to grow in order to be sufficient to domestic demand for consumption and exportation for gaining currencies for country development can be simply calculated as follows: it a Thai population consumes 0.20 cubic meter of teak per head per annum. for 60 million population, the teaks must be planted of 1.2 million cubic meters or produced from teak garden of 600,000 rais per annum. In case of using 25-year cutting round, teak garden will be 15 million rais or will be grown of 1.5 million rais per year. But why today (Thailand has 12-million-rai para rubber gardens, 500,000 families obtain interest with economy flows for more than 150,000 million baht a year) Thailand must invest in growing several forests are as follows: 

1. Demand to purchase high-qualified logs increases, particularly teaks having Certificate of Forest Stewardship Council (Forest Stewardship Council : FSC) or ISO 14061
2. Decrease in high-qualified log production
3. Demand to develop little valuable agricultural lands to be more valuable by teaks highly needed by world market
4. Necessity of the country to reduce CO
5. Teaks are highly needed by domestic market and world market;
6. Necessity to develop deteriorated forests to maintain environmental balance;
7. Necessity to use forestry branch as an employment source and to develop the economy of the country

 

Whether return on investment to plant the teaks is worthwhile or not can be considered from data of investment to plant teak gardens project 1 subsidized by The Thai Plywood Co., Ltd., in the number of 10 forest gardens with areas of 137,096 rais from B.E. 2510 to B.E. 2543, which has total expense amounting to 588 million baht and total revenue amounting to 935 million baht and perennial teaks remain 1.3 million cubic meters which is worth 5,000 million baht. In each year, the wood will increase at the rate of 130,000 cubic meters, which can be consumed merely 50,000 cubic meters per annum in comparison with using interest whereby the existing cost is not depleted. Nowadays, both FIO teak garden, namely, Suan Sak Khao Kra Yang, Phitsanulok Province, and Suan Sak Thong Pha Phom< Kanchanaburi Province, with areas over 30,000 rais attain world standard certification (FSC) which the teaks can be exported around the world without any trade obstruction or price pressure henceforth. Furthermore, if subsidized by the government, all of the teaks in Thailand will be certified (FSC) and Thai teaks can easily enter into world market without any obstacle.