1.2 Evolution of forest policy and legislation The Forest Act of 1969 was the first Act passed by the National Assembly after its inauguration. The first formal forest policy for Bhutan was approved in 1974, and this remains the only officially approved policy statement on forests. Prior to 1974 a series of general principles was observed for the management of forests, and these were derived to some extent from the Forest Act of 1969. The 1974 policy followed the directions in the 1969 Forest Act that mandated that all forests belong to the State, and there should be no private rights to any part of them. All lands not registered under an individual's thram (land title document) were considered to be forest lands and were nationalised. Currently, all forest land is owned and managed by the State. The 1974 policy also set a framework for the scientific management of the country's forest lands, and laid out approaches to be adopted for the key areas of forest conservation, afforestation, resource survey, utilisation and wild life conservation. This policy also contained the first mention of the objective of maintaining "a minimum of 60% of the total land under forest", which was later included in the Constitution. A new National Forest Policy was drafted in 1990 under a Master Plan process, but this remains in draft form without having been officially approved. Even though the draft was not officially approved it was still influential in guiding policy direction. The primary policy objective of this draft was on conservation of the environment, and only thereafter on deriving economic benefits from the forests. A major thrust was to bring the reserved forest under effective and scientifically prepared management plans, and approved management plans are now conditional for commercial harvesting. All policy documents to date have provided for the on-going supply of timber to rural households. In spite of the policy intent to balance conservation and sustainable utilisation objectives, interpretation of the policies and