The hill tribes have traditionally been primarily subsistence farmers who use slash and burnagricultural techniques to farm their heavily forested communities.[2] Popular perceptions that slash and burn practices are environmentally destructive, government concerns over borderland security, and population pressure has caused the government to forcibly relocate many hill tribe peoples.[3] Traditionally, hill tribes were also a migratory people, leaving land as it became depleted of natural resources or when trouble arose.
A 2013 article in Bangkok Post said that "Nearly a million hill peoples and forest dwellers are still treated as outsiders—criminals even, since most live in protected forests. Viewed as national security threats, hundreds of thousands of them are refused citizenship although many are natives to the land