In the closed meeting it was revealed that just 794 rai of the land in the forest preserve – 16 per cent – is still untouched forest. The rest has been taken over, mostly for rubber plantations and other forms of farming.
A total of 268 people now live inside the preserve, 17 of whom have papers showing some form of land ownership or occupations rights.
Officials will now have to examine each of these papers to see whether the paper trail begins before or after the area was declared to be a forest preserve.