World Rural Development Day 🌾: There is no development under stolen land, forced evictions. Save the Sab Wai Villagers! ✊

On World Rural Development Day, we stand with the Sab Wai Villagers, Isaan forest-dependent communities from Chaiyaphum who have lived, farmed, and cared for the forest since the 1970s, long before their lands were declared part of Sai Thong National Park.

A “green” policy that evicts rural communities and forest guardians is NOT development. It’s a false climate solution 🙅🏽‍♀️

🇹🇭🌳 Under Thailand's Forest Reclamation Policy, 14 villagers, including nine Isaan women, were criminalised as “encroachers” on their own lands, exposing how so-called climate action is being used to punish poor, rural, and Indigenous communities while protecting the rich and powerful.

⚖️ In May 2025, the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand (NHRCT) confirmed that Sab Wai Villagers’ rights were violated and called on authorities to delay evictions, provide farmland, and revise discriminatory forest rules.

But justice is still being delayed.

Authorities have failed to return their lands, and are now trying to dodge accountability by claiming the NHRCT has no authority because the case already received a court judgment.

📣 The NHRCT must follow through. Thailand must answer to national and international human rights pressure, including the UN Communication issued after Manushya’s 2022 UN Complaint.

There is no rural development on stolen land. No climate justice in forced eviction. Stand with Sab Wai Villagers. Stand with all rural communities defending their lands. ✊🏽

#SaveSabWaiVillagers! #ClimateJustice #NoToFalseSolutions #LandRightsNow

#WeAreManushyan ♾️ Equal Human Beings