Thailand Community Forest Grants 2025: Win Up to ฿24 Million for Forest Restoration and Carbon Credits

If your community forest network in Thailand is working to restore degraded land and you’re wondering how to fund the next phase of your restoration work, this grant program from the Royal Forest Department could be transformative. We’re talking about up to ฿24 million per community network to support comprehensive forest restoration that combines biodiversity recovery, sustainable livelihoods, and carbon credit generation.

This isn’t a small pilot project fund. With ฿24 million, your community network can implement large-scale restoration covering hundreds of hectares, hire local staff, purchase equipment and seedlings, conduct biodiversity surveys, and develop the monitoring systems needed to verify carbon credits. For community forest networks that have been doing restoration work on limited budgets, this level of funding represents a major step forward.

What makes this program particularly valuable is its integrated approach. The Royal Forest Department recognizes that successful forest restoration can’t just focus on tree planting. It needs to restore ecosystem functions, provide economic benefits to local communities through non-timber forest products (NTFPs), and generate verifiable carbon credits that create long-term revenue streams. This grant supports all three dimensions.

The program prioritizes inclusive governance, requiring meaningful participation from women and Indigenous communities. This isn’t just a checkbox exercise - the application review process specifically evaluates how decision-making authority is shared and how benefits will be distributed equitably across different community groups.

Key Details at a Glance

What This Grant Supports

The ฿24 million allocation can cover a wide range of restoration activities, giving your network flexibility to design a comprehensive program suited to your local conditions.

Forest Restoration and Rehabilitation: The core of any proposal should address how you’ll restore degraded forest areas. This includes site preparation, native seedling production and planting, invasive species removal, soil improvement, and erosion control. You can budget for a community nursery, purchasing seeds from local forest sources, hiring community members for planting work, and maintaining planted areas during the critical first three years.

Biodiversity Monitoring and Enhancement: Successful applications demonstrate clear plans for monitoring biodiversity recovery and enhancing habitat for key species. This might include wildlife surveys using camera traps, bird monitoring programs, protection of seed sources and mother trees, creation of wildlife corridors, and restoration of water sources. Budget for equipment like camera traps, binoculars for bird surveys, GPS units for mapping, and training for community monitors.

Non-Timber Forest Product Development: The program wants to see how restoration will improve community livelihoods through sustainable NTFP harvesting. This could include planting fruit trees, medicinal plants, bamboo, rattan, mushroom cultivation areas, and other products that provide income without requiring tree cutting. Budget for appropriate species selection, planting materials, processing equipment, and market development support.

Carbon Sequestration Monitoring: Since carbon credit generation is a key outcome, your proposal needs a credible plan for measuring and verifying carbon sequestration. This typically requires establishing permanent monitoring plots, conducting regular forest inventories, working with certified third-party verifiers, and maintaining long-term data records. Budget for technical training, measurement equipment, data management systems, and verification costs.

Community Capacity Building: Strong proposals include substantial investment in training community members to manage restoration work, conduct monitoring, maintain financial records, and coordinate with government agencies. Budget for workshops, study tours to successful restoration sites, technical training programs, and ongoing mentorship.

Equipment and Infrastructure: Depending on your site conditions, you might need vehicles for accessing remote areas, tools for site preparation and maintenance, irrigation systems for nurseries, storage facilities for seeds and equipment, and basic infrastructure like trails for monitoring access.

Who Should Apply

This grant is specifically designed for community forest networks that have moved beyond the initial organizing phase and are ready to implement landscape-scale restoration.

Registered Community Forest Committees are the only eligible applicants. Your committee must be officially registered with the Royal Forest Department before you can apply. If you’re still in the registration process, prioritize completing that before the application deadline. The registration requirement ensures that communities have legal standing and governance structures in place.

Community Networks with Multi-Village Coordination tend to be most competitive. The ฿24 million funding level is designed for networks that can work across multiple villages and communities to restore forest landscapes, not just individual village woodlots. If you’re a single village, consider partnering with neighboring communities to form a network.

Groups with Restoration Experience have an advantage, but you don’t need to be experts. If your network has done some pilot restoration work, managed a community nursery, or participated in previous reforestation projects, highlight that experience. It shows you understand the challenges and have built some capacity. However, first-time restoration groups with strong local knowledge and good planning can also be competitive.

Communities with Clear Land Tenure will have stronger applications. The Royal Forest Department needs assurance that restored forests will remain protected long-term. If your community has secure rights to the forest area through community forest designation, clear agreements with the Forest Department, or traditional use rights, document this clearly.

You’re a strong candidate if your network can demonstrate:

• Legal registration as a community forest committee with the Royal Forest Department
• A restoration area of at least 500 hectares (smaller areas might be considered for high-biodiversity sites)
• Clear governance structures with documented participation from women and Indigenous groups
• Local knowledge of native species, traditional forest management, and ecological conditions
• Willingness to commit community labor and local resources as in-kind match
• Capacity to maintain financial records and report on project milestones
• Long-term commitment to protecting and managing restored forests

Women’s participation is specifically evaluated. Your application should demonstrate how women are involved in decision-making, not just implementation. How many women serve on the community forest committee? How will women benefit from NTFP development? Are women included in training programs? The stronger you can show genuine gender equity in governance and benefit-sharing, the more competitive your application.

Indigenous communities should emphasize traditional ecological knowledge and customary forest management practices. If your network includes Indigenous villages, explain how traditional knowledge will guide species selection, planting timing, and ecosystem management. Applications that integrate Indigenous knowledge with scientific restoration techniques are particularly valued.

Insider Tips for a Competitive Proposal

Here’s what actually strengthens your application, based on patterns from successful past recipients and conversations with Royal Forest Department staff.

Start with Excellent Site Selection and Baseline Data: Don’t just identify a degraded area - document its current condition thoroughly. Take photos, conduct a basic forest inventory, map the area with GPS, identify existing vegetation, document soil conditions, and note any wildlife presence. The more baseline data you provide, the more credible your restoration targets become. Reviewers want to see that you understand what you’re starting with.

Develop a Realistic 5-Year Timeline: Overly optimistic timelines hurt your credibility. Forest restoration takes time. A strong proposal might show Year 1 focused on site preparation, nursery establishment, and community training; Year 2-3 on intensive planting and early maintenance; Year 4-5 on monitoring, adaptive management, and NTFP development. This shows you understand the work involved.

Budget Appropriately for Community Labor: The in-kind match requirement means community members will contribute labor and local materials. Calculate this realistically. If you’re proposing to plant 100,000 seedlings, how many person-days of labor will that require? Show those labor contributions as in-kind match. But don’t underbudget the cash components you actually need - reviewers can tell when budgets are unrealistic.

Demonstrate Inclusive Governance Concretely: Don’t just state that women and Indigenous people will participate. Provide specific details. List the women and Indigenous representatives on your committee by name and role. Describe your decision-making process. Explain how meeting times and locations are set to enable women’s participation. Show the percentage of NTFP benefits that will go to women-led households. Concrete details are far more convincing than general statements.

Connect to Broader Landscape Conservation: Show how your restoration area connects to larger forest blocks, wildlife corridors, or watershed protection. Reviewers favor projects that contribute to landscape-level conservation, not just isolated patches. If your site provides connectivity between existing forest areas, creates buffer zones for protected areas, or protects important watersheds, emphasize this.

Plan for Carbon Credit Generation Realistically: Don’t overestimate carbon credits. Work with realistic growth rates for your tree species, appropriate carbon sequestration factors for your forest type, and honest timelines for when carbon credits can be verified and sold. If possible, connect with carbon credit programs like the Thailand Voluntary Emission Reduction Program (T-VER) and reference their methodologies. Reviewers are skeptical of inflated carbon projections.

Include Strong Monitoring and Adaptive Management: Show that you’ll track what’s working and adjust what isn’t. Describe specific monitoring indicators for restoration success, biodiversity recovery, and community benefits. Explain how monitoring data will inform management decisions. Describe your process for addressing problems like high seedling mortality, invasive species, or drought stress.

Get Technical Support for Your Proposal: The Royal Forest Department offers pre-application technical assistance. Use it. Their staff can review your site, help refine your restoration approach, advise on species selection, and provide feedback on your draft proposal. Applications developed with technical support tend to be much stronger.

Application Process and Timeline

Here’s a realistic timeline working backward from the May 27, 2025 deadline.

May 15-27: Final proposal review, document assembly, and submission. Don’t wait until the last day. Submit at least one week before the deadline to allow for any technical issues with the online submission system or missing documents that need to be tracked down. Have someone outside your network read the entire proposal for clarity and completeness.

April-May: Complete your full proposal and gather supporting documents. This includes your detailed restoration plan, budget with justifications, maps of the restoration area, committee registration documents, evidence of inclusive governance, baseline site data, and letters of support from relevant agencies or partners.

March-April: Conduct detailed site assessments and develop your technical restoration plan. This is when you do the serious fieldwork - mapping the exact restoration area, conducting vegetation surveys, testing soil if needed, identifying seed sources, planning nursery location, and developing species lists. Work with a forester or ecologist if possible to ensure your plan is technically sound.

February-March: Consult with Royal Forest Department district and provincial offices. Schedule a site visit with their staff. Get their input on your restoration approach. Ask about successful past projects in your region that you can learn from. Build relationships with the staff who can provide technical guidance.

January-February: Form or strengthen your community network and establish clear governance. If you’re bringing together multiple villages, hold founding meetings, elect committee officers, draft your governance charter, and document procedures for decision-making. Make sure women and Indigenous representatives have genuine decision-making roles, not token positions.

December-January: Begin community organizing and planning. Hold village meetings to discuss the opportunity, identify interested communities, visit potential restoration sites together, and start building consensus on goals and approaches.

Required Application Materials

Community Forest Committee Registration Certificate: You must provide documentation that your committee is officially registered with the Royal Forest Department. If you have a registration number, include it. Attach a copy of your registration certificate.

Detailed Restoration Plan (15-25 pages): This is your core document. Include sections on site conditions and baseline data, restoration objectives with measurable targets, detailed restoration activities by year, species selection with justification, planting and maintenance approaches, biodiversity monitoring plan, NTFP development strategy, carbon sequestration methodology, community participation and governance, and risk management.

Budget and Budget Narrative: Provide a line-item budget for the full grant period, broken down by year and activity category. For each major budget line, include a narrative justification explaining why this expense is necessary, how costs were estimated, and how it connects to project outcomes. Include the value of in-kind contributions from the community.

Maps and Site Documentation: Submit maps showing the restoration area boundary, current forest cover, villages involved, and connection to other forest areas. Include GPS coordinates for site boundaries. Provide photographs documenting current site conditions. If you have satellite imagery or forest cover data, include it.

Committee Governance Documents: Provide your committee charter or bylaws, list of committee officers with their roles, documentation of how officers were selected, meeting minutes showing community participation, and evidence of inclusive governance (number and roles of women and Indigenous members).

Letters of Support: Get letters from the district Royal Forest Department office, local government (tambon or amphoe level), and any partner organizations. Letters should be specific about how they’ll support your work, not just general endorsements.

Baseline Biodiversity and Forest Data: Document current conditions. This might include simple forest inventory data (tree counts, species present, size distribution), wildlife observation records, photographs of vegetation types, and notes on degradation status (soil erosion, invasive species, past disturbance).

What Makes Applications Stand Out

Based on reviews of funded projects, here’s what evaluators are actually looking for:

Clear Theory of Change (35% of scoring): Reviewers want to see a logical connection between your activities and intended outcomes. Your proposal should clearly explain how site preparation, species selection, planting approach, and maintenance will lead to forest recovery. How will biodiversity monitoring inform adaptive management? How will NTFP development create sustainable livelihoods? How will carbon credit revenue support long-term forest protection? Applications that spell out these connections score highest.

Technical Soundness (25% of scoring): Is your restoration approach appropriate for local conditions? Are your species choices native and suitable for the site? Is your planting density reasonable? Are your timelines realistic? Have you planned for likely challenges like drought, fire, or grazing pressure? Applications with clear technical knowledge and realistic planning score well.

Community Capacity and Commitment (20% of scoring): Can your network actually implement and sustain this work? What’s your track record with collective action? How many community members will be involved? What in-kind contributions can you provide? How will you maintain planted areas over the long term? Reviewers look for evidence of genuine community ownership, not just a few leaders applying for money.

Inclusive Governance (15% of scoring): This is explicitly scored. How are decisions made? Who holds leadership positions? How are women and Indigenous people included? How will benefits be shared? Applications with strong documentation of inclusive processes and equitable benefit-sharing score highest on this criterion.

Landscape-Level Impact (5% of scoring): Does your project contribute to broader conservation goals? Does it protect watersheds, connect forest fragments, or buffer protected areas? Applications that show how local restoration fits into larger landscape conservation receive bonus points.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Underestimating Maintenance Requirements: The most common implementation failure is inadequate maintenance in years 2-3 after planting. Your budget should include substantial resources for weeding, watering if needed, replanting to fill gaps, and protection from fire or grazing. Plan for at least three years of intensive maintenance.

Unclear Governance Structures: Applications that vaguely refer to “community participation” without showing specific governance mechanisms get low scores. Be explicit about who makes decisions, how conflicts are resolved, how information is shared, and how financial management works.

Overly Ambitious Scope: It’s better to propose excellent restoration on 500 hectares than mediocre work on 2,000 hectares. Reviewers can calculate whether your budget and staffing are adequate for your proposed area. If the numbers don’t work, they’ll assume you don’t understand the work involved.

Weak Connection Between Activities and Outcomes: Don’t just list activities. Explain how each activity contributes to specific outcomes. How does biodiversity monitoring improve restoration success? How does NTFP development create incentives for long-term forest protection? Make these connections explicit.

Ignoring Carbon Credit Complexity: Generating carbon credits requires rigorous monitoring, third-party verification, and compliance with certification standards. Don’t treat this casually. If you’re not familiar with carbon credit requirements, consult with the Thailand Greenhouse Gas Management Organization or a carbon project developer before writing this section.

Missing the Match Requirement: You need to demonstrate in-kind contributions from the community. Calculate and document community labor, use of community land, local materials, and volunteer time. Show this clearly in your budget as matching contribution.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can we apply if we’re just starting our community forest registration? No, you must be fully registered with the Royal Forest Department before applying. Registration can take 6-12 months, so if you’re not registered yet, use this cycle to complete registration and plan to apply in the next funding round.

What if our restoration area is smaller than 500 hectares? The program prioritizes larger landscape-level projects, but smaller areas might be considered if they have exceptional biodiversity value, protect critical watersheds, or connect important forest fragments. Make a strong case for why your smaller area has high conservation priority.

Do we need to hire a consulting firm to write the proposal? No. While technical assistance on restoration planning can be helpful, the proposal should come from the community. Reviewers can tell the difference between community-written proposals and consultant-written ones. They favor proposals that clearly come from community knowledge and priorities, even if the writing isn’t polished.

Can we change our restoration plan after receiving funding? Minor adjustments are expected as you learn what works in your specific conditions. That’s what adaptive management means. But major changes to objectives, areas, or approaches require approval from the Royal Forest Department. Build flexibility into your plan from the start.

What happens if we don’t meet our targets? Funding is disbursed based on milestones. If you fall behind on planting targets or other benchmarks, your next disbursement might be delayed until you get back on track. The Department works with communities to address problems, but persistent failure to meet targets can result in funding reduction or termination.

How long until we can generate carbon credits? Realistically, 5-7 years minimum. Trees need to grow substantially before you have significant carbon sequestration. Then you need to go through verification. Some programs require 10+ years of data. Don’t count on carbon credit revenue in the early years - budget for long-term operation until that revenue materializes.

Can we use the grant to pay community members? Yes, wages for community members doing restoration work are an appropriate budget item. This provides immediate livelihood benefits while the forest is recovering. Be realistic about labor rates - use prevailing local wages for similar agricultural or conservation work.

What if we don’t have all the technical skills needed? Part of the grant can cover technical training and hiring expertise you lack. If you need help with species selection, budget for a consulting forester. If you need training on carbon monitoring, include that. Reviewers want to see that you recognize skill gaps and have plans to address them.

How to Apply

Ready to move forward? Here’s what to do next.

First, verify that your community forest committee is fully registered with the Royal Forest Department. Contact your district forestry office to confirm your registration status and get a copy of your registration certificate. If registration isn’t complete, prioritize finishing that process before investing time in a full proposal.

Second, organize site visits and community meetings. Bring together representatives from all villages in your network. Visit potential restoration sites together. Start building consensus on goals, approaches, and governance. Make sure women and Indigenous community members are involved from the beginning, not added later.

Third, contact your Royal Forest Department district office to schedule a preliminary consultation. They can provide technical guidance on restoration approaches suitable for your area, point you to successful examples in your region, and give feedback on whether your preliminary ideas are competitive. This early consultation significantly strengthens applications.

Fourth, begin gathering baseline data on your restoration site. Take lots of photographs from consistent photo points. Conduct basic surveys of current vegetation. Map the area with GPS. Document current conditions thoroughly - this is the baseline you’ll measure success against.

Fifth, if you need technical support on restoration planning or carbon monitoring, identify local forestry experts, university researchers, or NGOs who can provide guidance. Many are willing to support community forest restoration as partners or advisors.

Visit the Royal Forest Department’s official website to access the full program guidelines, application forms, and submission portal: https://www.forest.go.th/

The application portal typically opens in late January. Submit your complete application at least one week before the May 27, 2025 deadline to allow for any technical issues.

For questions about eligibility or application requirements, contact your provincial Royal Forest Department office. They can provide guidance specific to your region and connect you with successful community forest networks who can share their experience.