Forest Guardians, Forest Destroyers
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Forest Guardians, Forest Destroyers

The Politics of Environmental Knowledge in Northern Thailand

Tim Forsyth, Andrew Walker

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Forest Guardians, Forest Destroyers

The Politics of Environmental Knowledge in Northern Thailand

Tim Forsyth, Andrew Walker

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About This Book

In this far-reaching examination of environmental problems and politics in northern Thailand, Tim Forsyth and Andrew Walker analyze deforestation, water supply, soil erosion, use of agrochemicals, and biodiversity in order to challenge popularly held notions of environmental crisis. They argue that such crises have been used to support political objectives of state expansion and control in the uplands. They have also been used to justify the alternative directions advocated by an array of NGOs. In official and alternative discourses of economic development, the peoples living in Thailand's hill country are typically cast as either guardians or destroyers of forest resources, often depending on their ethnicity. Political and historical factors have created a simplistic, misleading, and often scientifically inaccurate environmental narrative: Hmong farmers, for example, are thought to exhibit environmentally destructive practices, whereas the Karen are seen as linked to and protective of their ancestral home. Forsyth and Walker reveal a much more complex relationship of hill farmers to the land, to other ethnic groups, and to the state. They conclude that current explanations fail to address the real causes of environmental problems and unnecessarily restrict the livelihoods of local people. The authors' critical assessment of simplistic environmental narratives, as well as their suggestions for finding solutions, will be valuable in international policy discussions about environmental issues in rapidly developing countries. Moreover, their redefinition of northern Thailand's environmental problems, and their analysis of how political influences have reinforced inappropriate policies, demonstrate new ways of analyzing how environmental science and knowledge are important arenas for political control. This book makes valuable contributions to Thai studies and more generally to the fields of environmental science, ecology, geography, anthropology, and political science, as well as to policy making and resource management in the developing world.

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1Environmental Crisis and the Crisis of Knowledge

THESE DAYS, MANY PEOPLE ASSUME that developing countries are undergoing some kind of environmental crisis. Thailand is no exception. James Fahn—who spent a decade writing for the environmental section of a Thai newspaper1—portrays this pessimism in his book, A Land on Fire, where he describes how Thailand seems to “consume itself through its breakneck pursuit of progress” (Fahn 2003:10). Writing of the “environmental catastrophe that is Thailand today,” he argues that “virtually every resource the country owns has been squandered with too little thought for the future.” Population growth and inconsiderate economic development have left the nation’s forests devastated, “their amazingly rich biodiversity became endangered before it could even be fully recorded.” Commercial agriculture with “wanton use of pesticides has poisoned the countryside.” Long stretches of the beloved coastline have been converted to shrimp farms and “the seas have been plundered of their fish” (Fahn 2003:5).
Forest Guardians, Forest Destroyers challenges this deeply pessimistic viewpoint. The aim is not to greenwash—to suggest that environmental problems do not exist or that environmental policy is unnecessary. Instead, the chapters that follow present a deeper political analysis of how and why—and with whose influence—environmental problems are defined the way they are. Along with a growing number of analysts from diverse backgrounds, this book questions the accuracy of “environmentalism as usual” and proposes that many popular descriptions of environmental degradation actually impede appropriate environmental management and sustainable development. The aim is to replace these simplistic ideas with a more biophysically nuanced and politically representative understanding of environmental change.
The geographic focus for this book is the highlands of northern Thailand.2 Current discussions of environmental degradation in this region are influenced by misleading and simplistic explanations, which may fail to address the causes of environmental problems and which may lead to policies that unnecessarily restrict the livelihoods of many residents of this region. Again, it is not the intention of this book to argue that environmental problems do not exist in northern Thailand or that urgent action is unnecessary in certain locations. The argument is that environmental knowledge—or the principles that are used to explain biophysical problems and to guide regulatory responses to them—has occupied a curiously unexamined role in politics to date. Analyzing the politics of environmental knowledge, and opening it to broader and more inclusive discussion, will help make environmental understanding more effective and will contribute to better solutions for the challenge of sustainable development in Thailand.

POLITICIZING ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE IN NORTHERN THAILAND

For many readers, “northern Thailand” inspires images of teak forests, Buddhist temples, lush green rice fields, and remote hillside villages inhabited by colorful “hill tribes.” The region has grown rapidly in popularity as a tourist destination, and for many visitors from both inside and outside Thailand it is a place of astounding beauty, environmental wonder and cultural diversity. So, why focus on this bucolic region?

The Political Significance of Northern Thailand

Northern Thailand is, without doubt, the most researched zone in mainland Southeast Asia. Research has been conducted in fields as diverse as anthropology, geography, economics, development studies, epidemiology, hydrology, and ecology. Physical scientists have often been inspired by the region’s striking mountainous terrain, its complex geology, its world-renowned forests, and its agricultural and hydrological resources. And social scientists have been attracted by the breathtaking diversity of ethnic groups and the mosaic of cultures juxtaposed in a complex landscape of valley bottoms, hill slopes, and mountain ridges. The ethnic minorities in the hill zones of northern Thailand are often considered to be very different from their lowland neighbors, and they have held an enduring fascination for researchers, development workers, missionaries, and NGO activists. Northern Thailand is also an important frontier area. In physical terms, the region’s mountains form a rugged edge of the plains of central Thailand, and the northern provinces were only fully integrated into the Bangkok-based administration in the twentieth century. More importantly still, the region is the southern gateway to the mountainous and inaccessible terrain that links Southeast Asia to China via the remote northern borderlands of Burma and Laos. Until the 1990s, northern Thailand was the closest Western travelers could get to neighboring communist countries without special permission, thus making it a popular research location for people wanting proximity to these countries.
In political terms, northern Thailand occupies an important and unusual niche. During the Vietnam War, and in the decade that followed, northern Thailand was seen as a strategic base from which to resist the incursion of communism from China, Vietnam, and Laos. Thailand was seen to be the “last domino” in Southeast Asia, and this influenced research and politics in the region in various ways. In the 1970s and 1980s, the mountainous terrain and porous borders of northern Thailand provided refuge for communist insurgents, with a number of districts declared “pink zones,” where sometimes violent confrontations occurred between insurgent forces and government troops. Given the international prominence of these security concerns, Thailand (and especially its northern and northeastern regions) became the recipient of various aid and development programs seeking to win over the “hearts and minds” of impoverished villagers. Enormous amounts of development aid and infrastructure investment were poured into previously remote districts. At times this was combined with some heavy-handed military action against suspected communist sympathizers in the uplands (Hearn 1974). The Thai government even allowed a group of Chinese Nationalist soldiers—who had fled from the forces of Mao Zedong—to settle on the Thai-Burmese border in Chiang Rai province and act as an anticommunist force from the 1960s to the 1980s (McCoy 1972:352; Bo Yang 1987).
Another concern has been the control of opium and its derivative, heroin. Northern Thailand is part of the infamous “Golden Triangle,” and its cool highland slopes were an important site of opium cultivation in the 1970s and 1980s. Writing in 1972, McCoy (1972:358) estimated that the picturesque poppy fields of Thailand’s northern mountains supplied the raw material for 70 percent of international opium production. Highly mobile caravans of mules and packhorses made their way along the region’s mountain trails, which linked remote upland villages with opium traders in the lowland centers. No doubt, sections of the Thai military and police played a key role in the trade, but under sustained international pressure decisions were made at the highest government levels to bring it to an end (McCoy 1972:316; Renard 2001). Many of the early government and nongovernment interventions in the northern uplands were motivated by the objective of eliminating opium cultivation.
These geopolitical concerns intimately influenced, and were entangled with, knowledge collection in the region. For example, in the early 1970s, American and Australian anthropologists working in the region were accused of working for the CIA or associated agencies, with overt military and counterinsurgency objectives (Wolf and Jorgensen 1970; Wakin 1992; Hinton 2002). These claims were exaggerated, but they led to some restrictions on research activities and a five-year embargo on publishing any results coming from Chiang Mai’s Tribal Research Institute (Wakin 1992). More generally, there is little doubt that a substantial proportion of research and development intervention in the region has been influenced by the view that the upland populations are, in certain important ways, problematic.
The illicit imagery of communist refuge, permeable borders, and rampant narcotic trade has become a significant component in popular imaginings of the northern uplands. And persistent ethnic conflict in the neighboring upland regions of Burma and Laos has added force to these anxieties. Characterization of the upland population as unruly and problematic easily carries over into discussions of environmental management. In fact, the political intrigues of northern Thailand influence the very language and contexts within which environmental change has been described. To take just one lighthearted example: Many agricultural plots in northern Thailand are covered with a characteristic short red grass during the early dry season. The grass—Rhynchelytrum repens—is called “grader grass” in Australia because of its tendency to grow quickly on recently cleared soil, and it has been associated with certain types of shifting cultivation in the uplands of northern Thailand. Yet, in some highland regions of Thailand, this grass is called “communist grass”—because, apparently, “it came when the communists came” (Forsyth 1992:135).

The Environmental Significance of Northern Thailand

It is therefore difficult to discuss knowledge about environmental change in northern Thailand without referring to the region’s complex and contested political past. Current debates about environment and development in the region are still influenced by knowledge produced during earlier times, and these debates still reflect concerns about national security and the negative impacts of illicit activities. Four themes are dominant:
Water supply and watershed functions. The northern uplands are the headwaters of Thailand’s primary river system—the Chao Phraya—that waters the central plain and that has nurtured the national capital, Bangkok, since its founding on the swampy river banks in 1782. It is no surprise, then, that accounts of environmental processes in the uplands often open with justifying statements about the key role of the region in national environmental health. This eco-interdependence finds potent expression in two important hydroelectric and irrigation dams, the Bhumiphol and the Sirikit—named after Thailand’s much revered king and queen—that interrupt the flow of the northern rivers on their southward path toward Bangkok. These two dams provide the bulk of the central region’s irrigation water and electricity supply, bringing the environmental realities of their northern catchments into the heartland of Thai concerns. And there are now profound anxieties about the sustainability of northern Thailand’s contribution to the nation’s hydrological health. Declining water levels behind the Bhumiphol Dam—inflows are estimated to have declined by almost 20 percent over the past thirty years, with further declines expected (Molle et al. 2000)—have prompted concerns that the mountainous uplands are no longer delivering the environmental bounty expected of them. Most commonly, the finger of blame is pointed at upland deforestation. As upland catchments are degraded by forest destruction, the reliable flow of water to central Thailand’s rice farms, factories, and cities is put at risk.
Forest protection and biodiversity. As well as being regarded as key water sources, northern Thailand’s upland forests are also considered important for “wilderness,” the protection of biodiversity, and, where allowed, selective logging and plantations. The Thai Royal Forest Department was founded in 1896 primarily to oversee the extraction of teak logs from Thailand’s northern forests, but in recent years its role has changed to forest protection. In 1989, a national logging ban was passed in response to national concerns about forest loss. Since then ambitious national targets have been set for “conservation forest,” and national parks and wildlife conservation areas have proliferated—many of them in the northern uplands—in order to protect newly recognized wilderness values. Most recently, forest conservation has come to be seen as a primary strategy for preserving Thailand’s internationally recognized abundant biodiversity. Once again, northern Thailand has been a focus of concern. As Fahn (2003:112) writes—reflecting widespread sentiment about the international importance of the extraordinary natural diversity in the uplands—“there are more species found on one mountain in northern Thailand than in some entire countries.”
Agricultural mismanagement. The agricultural activities of upland farmers—who are stereotypically associated with “shifting cultivation” or “slash-and-burn” farming—are often targeted as a primary cause of upland degradation. Slash-and-burn agriculture is a popular name for forms of cultivation that involve cutting down forest (or forest regrowth) and then burning the forest biomass to add nutrients to the soil. Over the decades numerous observers in northern Thailand (and elsewhere) have claimed that this “primitive” technique is a primary cause of forest loss. This supposedly inefficient and haphazard form of upland agriculture has also been blamed for soil erosion on mountain slopes—which adds to farming problems in the uplands, creates sedimentation in the lowlands, and reduces the water-holding properties of soil.
More recently, upland development projects have been criticized for supporting supposedly damaging forms of agriculture. In particular, crop-substitution initiatives—aiming to replace highlanders’ production of opium by giving them alternative cash crops such as cabbages, potatoes, or strawberries—have been blamed for accelerating erosion and encouraging further deforestation in pursuit of commercial gain. New forms of commercial agriculture are also regularly linked to the excessive use of agrochemicals (fertilizer, pesticide, and herbicide), which are alleged to contaminate water supplies and damage fragile upland soils.
Ethnic conflict. Environmental concerns in the uplands are enhanced by well-publicized outbreaks of intercommunity conflict. Lowland farmers frequently blame the forest clearing and increasingly commercial agriculture of their upstream neighbors for water shortages, siltation of irrigation systems, and chemical contamination of water supplies. These conflicts often take on an ethnic dimension because many upland farmers are members of ethnic minorities (the so-called hill tribes) while lowland farmers are predominantly northern Thai. These disputes are characterized by an increasing level of violence as lowland farmers, sometimes backed by state officials, take matters into their own hands and attempt to forcibly evict upland farmers. Conflicts are compounded by widely held ethnic stereotypes that portray some groups of upland farmers as environmentally destructive, others as environmentally benign. The “environment” has become a new ideological battleground in the north.

The Politics of Environmental Knowledge in Northern Thailand

Anxiety about these issues has generated an enormous amount of public debate about the appropriate direction for environmental management in northern Thailand. For many observers, this debate can be divided simply between two groups. On the one hand, there are “nature-oriented” conservationists who seek to protect upland areas in order to preserve forests and to maintain lowland supplies of water. For conservationists, conflict is undesirable but perhaps inevitable if nature is to be adequately protected. They argue for an array of regulatory measures that restrict human impacts on the vulnerable natural environment. Often, “scientific” findings are harnessed to underline the fragility of upland ecosystems and the negative impacts of human activities upon them. Idiosyncratic forms of Buddhist ecology are sometimes used to broaden the appeal of this message. This conservationist position is perhaps most notoriously represented by the Royal Forest Department. In 1998, the department’s director general “ruled out the principle of coexistence between man and nature in tackling the problems of people living in the forest.” He justified the expulsion of upland residents from conservation areas on the basis that “the forest exists for hundreds of years but you are just born. . . . You can live in the forest if you live like barbarians. But now your life is civilized and we have no more forest left, so you have to go” (Plodprasop Suraswadi quoted in Chakrit 1998; see also Brenner et al. 1999:25).
On the other hand there are the “people-oriented” development practitioners and NGO activists who want to protect upland lifestyles. This viewpoint places priority on local governance and democratization as counterpoints to conservationist concerns, which people-oriented advocates portray as insensitive to the needs of poor farmers and too akin to a heavy-handed state. These proponents regularly argue that longstanding traditions of local resource management can form a basis for the effective management of natural resources in the uplands, provided they are given appropriate state recognition and protection from the persistent inroads of commercialization. Indeed, it is often asserted that the northern uplands have high environmental value precisely because of the low impact, nature-friendly farming systems practiced by many of those resident there. For example, one upland development worker, Tuenjai Deetes, said, “the rain catchment forests will also be more effectively protected if the authorities do not promote mono cash cropping or intensive chemical use in the highlands, and instead support natural farming which helps restore the natural balance” (quoted in Sanitsuda 1993).3 In this alternative vision of the uplands, the emphasis is on the value of farmers’ traditional knowledge rather than on regulations to exclude upland farmers.
How is this book positioned in this ongoing debate? Put simply, it criticizes both positions. The chapters that follow present diverse evidence to question common conservationist beliefs that (for example) upland deforestation causes lowland water shortages. But the book also questions counterarguments such as the claim that “traditional” upland agriculture can provide a basis for socially and environmentally sustainable livelihoods. Both positions reflect particular social and political influences on the production of environmental knowledge. These different forms of knowledge have important political implications that are not reducible to a simple “state” versus “local” dichotomy. Instead, this book proposes that a critical assessment of this political context can move the environmental debate beyond this simple standoff between apparently opposing positions. In fact, when competing viewpoints are explored in detail it becomes evident that in some important respects they are based upon very similar, yet highly contestable, understandings about the underlying environmental processes in the uplands. These widely shared understandings—or, as discussed below, “narratives”—are what this book seeks to assess critically and make ...

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