Inland fisheries
Inland fisheries compose of 2 main activities, i.e. harvesting from wild
and aquaculture, wild freshwater fishes were totally harvested from public water bodies, and flood
plain areas in the rainy season while cultured species were obtained from ponds, paddies, ditches,
and cages.
Marine fisheries
Marine fisheries and coastal aquaculture are the main fishery production
of the country. Marine fishery resources are divided into 3 groups, i.e. pelagic fishery resources,
demersal fishery resources, and invertebrates or other aquatic animals. Two marine fishing grounds
of the country are the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea area. As for deep sea fishery, it is
usually done in Southeast Asian country zone and South Asian zone. Coastal aquaculture is the
activity operating along the sea shore, estuarine areas, canals, lakes inundation areas, mangrove
areas, and shallow areas near the sea shore.
Marine fishery output has smoothly continued expanding due to the factors: the increased
fishing outside Thai territorial waters as neighbouring countries allowed Thai fishing boats to fish in
their waters either based on payment of fees or joint investment projects and the successful on
implementation of measures to conserve and restore of the resources including the rapid expansion
of coastal farming, especially the cultured giant tiger prawn.
Timber and forest products statistics originate from the Royal Forestry Department,
Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives.
Forest area means all forest types such as evergreen, pine, mangrove, dry dipterocarp,
mixed deciduous, scrub, swamp, bamboo and forest plantation in the national forest reserved,
national parks, wildlife sancturies, forest working plan and forest concession areas, excluding para
rubber plantations and orchards.
Regarding forestry situations in general, the National Forest Policy has established as a
policy that there should be at least 40 percent of the country area under forest cover. This represents
about 128 million rais so as to achieve balance in environments and emphasize on population to
participate the activities of Royal Forestry Department.
