Cultural Bioregionalism: Towards a Natural Balance
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Page 1 of 6 CULTURAL BIOREGIONALISM: TOWARDS A NATURAL BALANCE For more than 20 years Chatchawan Thongdeelert has worked with village people, the monkhood, academics, business people and civil servants at the local level in Northern Thailand. Says Chatchawan, "The thinking and experience which is recounted below does not spring from the writer's experience alone, but rather from a process of practice and learning within the Northern Thai NGO movement in conjunction with movements in other regions of Thailand. " by Chatchawan Thongdeelert Between 1986 and 1988 Northern Thai NGOs cooperated in seminars bringing together leaders from each province in the upper North to exchange views and experience. It was hoped that a network of regional leaders would result. In fact, however, after such seminars had been held for three or four years, the result was that when leaders came together to exchange knowledge and understanding and came to know leaders from other regions better, there remained limitations in their ability to travel across provincial boundaries to continue 'follow up' discussions and activities. Discussions began about how a more sustainable network of leaders could be fostered. It was suggested that forums for leaders at a lower level should be encouraged on the basis of cultural bioregions. It was at this time that the Group for Chiang Mai was assembling local people, including academics, monks, business, NGOs, students, and ordinary locals in opposition to the construction of the Doi Suthep Skyway which would take tourists to the top of the mountain which overlooks the city to the west. The Group succeeded in stopping the project. In 1987, meanwhile, Lamphun province residents, including NGOs, government officials, and monks, began organizing under the auspices of the Lamphun Discussion Group. This approach to Organisation at the local level began to be promoted and to expand to other local areas as well. Eventually, a number of groups came into being, including the Love Nan Group, the Phayao Environmental Group, the Directions for Chiang Rai group, the Phrae Nature Conservation Club, and the Mae Hong Son Problem Discussion Group. This Organisation around local awareness had a basis in history and culture which helped the groups come together in a powerful dynamic appropriate to the local situation. The emergence of a community which attempted to struggle and conserve forests in the form of community forests - Thung Yao in Lamphun province - and of a local struggle to restore forest in Huay Kaew sub district of Chiang Mai led to the 'discovery' by researchers of 151 communities preserving local forests in 1991. By 1994, 277 such community forests had been surveyed by NGOs and by 1995, a total of 406 such forests had been documented. These communities expanded their activities following the line of river valleys. They used the same water-courses and had met the same problems. In addition, they had a common basis in cultural relations through kinship and friendship, and often shared traditional muang faai irrigation systems, as well as Buddhist temples which were linked to each other through long -standing mutual support systems. Among the organisations formed were networks in the Wang and Thaa river valleys, a community forest conservation club in Chiang Rai province, a Khaa Mountain Area Natural Resource Conservation Committee in Nan province, a Kwaan Phayao Watershed Conservation Committee, and a Natural Resource Conservation Committee in Lamphun province. Village organisations also cooperated with the state sector, particularly the Watershed Conservation Division of the Royal Forest Department in the Doi Saam Muen Highland Development Project. Here communities participated in planning and resource management and developed networks along small river valleys in the Taeng river watershed in Chiang Mai and the Paai River watershed in Mae Hong Son province. The Love Nan Group meanwhile conducted life-extending rituals for the Nan River under the leadership of a senior monk in the course of mobilising sentiment around protection and restoration of watershed forest. Hundreds of communities who derive benefit from the Nan River and its tributaries were linked together through their participation, including monks, civil servants, and NGOs, as well as interested people from other provinces. Page 2 of 6 The logging of a natural pine forest of 240 square kilometres in Wat Chan, a sub district inhabited by Karen people, was meanwhile opposed by an alliance of many groups in the relevant watershed, that of the Chaem River. Monks, villagers, and even local officials from a radius of 79 kilometres joined together under the auspices of the Love Mae Chaem Group to protect the threatened trees through, for example, a "tree ordination" ceremony during which monks' orange robes were wrapped around trunks, a phaa paa khaaw ceremony, mobilising material support for local Wat Chan protesters, and so on. Such collective leaning processes clarified the thinking associated with the emerging cultural bioregionalism approach, and suggested how the approach could manifest itself concretely in geographical units consisting of river valleys. An Approach to the Management of River Valleys by Popular Organizations A river valley is a basic resource unit containing both a core river and sub-units organised around tributaries. Its advantages for management are as follows: It fits existing bases of community culture. The old Lanna Kingdom of the Up per North of Thailand has long had its own language, culture and administrative system. In 1996 it is, officially, 700 years old. About 60 per cent of the land area consists of highlands, 30 per cent of foothills and uplands, and only 10 percent of river valley bottoms. It is thus an important catchment area for many rivers: the Kok and Ing, which are tributaries of the Mekong River; the Paai and the Yuam, which are tributaries of the Salween River; and the Ping, Wang, Yoni, and Nan, flowing into the Chao Phraya River, which feeds Thailand's central region's agriculture and thus the country's major cities. Northern Thai communities take the form of clusters of houses along smaller or larger valley bottoms, but out of the way of flooding on small rises. Karen and Lua peoples, who are very long-term residents of what is now Thailand, as well as ethnic groups who arrived more recently such as Akha, Muser, Lisu, Man, and Hmong peoples, live close to tributaries in the highlands. On the whole, lowland Thai, Karen, and Lua peoples will clear land for wet rice fields in river valleys and swidden fields on hill slopes. Further up are community forests for use ( paa chai sooi ) and watershed community forests ( paa ton nam ). The other ethnic groups open swidden fields, again with community use forests and community-protected watershed forests above those. The production systems of the community with fit the local ecosystem. Lowland wet rice will be supported by communally constructed and managed muang faai traditional irrigation systems, which distribute water according to local agreement. Rotating agriculture further up, with each family cultivating six to eight fields, is managed to allow the soil periods of regeneration which also protect against erosion. The community forest further up meanwhile yields food and medicines, building wood, tools, and fodder. Each type of forest — watershed, use forest, or ceremonial forest — has conservation practices connected with it and is regarded as naa muu , or communal property belonging to everyone. A diversity of goods is produced, together forming a balance with the community, its surroundings, and their mutual relationship. The community creates attitudes of respect and humility toward nature which take the form of explanations involving phii or spirits around which each year ceremonies are organized. For example, all users of the water of a particular stream will regularly come together to pay respect and show their humility toward the relevant phii khun nam , or spirit which looks after the stream. There are also spirits of the irrigation system, spirits of the forest, spirits of the rice fields, spirits of the swidden fields, and so on. From all this, it is clear that Northern communities have management systems for soil, water and forests alike, as well as for production, and build cultures of value connected with these systems. One constant here has been the stewardship of watersheds through networks of cooperation. Community movements to protect livelihoods and bioregions include: 1986-1988: a protest against a forestry concession at Ban Nahong, Chiang Mai province. Ban Nahong villagers formed a coalition with villagers from Ban Thaprai. The concession was stopped after the 1939 logging ban. 1986-1987: a protest by villagers from Ban Huai Koeng, against a plantation as part of the Royal Forestry Department's agreement with timber companies to reforest logging areas. Villagers have now retaken the land for their own use. Page 3 of 6 1992-1993: a lignite mining concession was cancelled by Chiang Mai provincial authorities after protests by villagers from Chaeng Khoeng village, Amphur Mae Chaem. 1992-1993: a Royal Project Resolution shelved the proposed logging of pine forest after protests by villagers from Ban Chan village, Chiang Mai province. The sawmill associated with the project has been dismantled. 1992-1993: villagers from Ban Pong Na Kham protested against the proposed Mae Kok darn in Chiang Rai province. EGAT's plans still exist, but no clear policy decision has yet been taken to build the dam. Working in river valley bioregions helps one view both problems and their solutions holistically, including problems connected with soil, water, forest, minerals, and agricultural production, with relationships within communities, community organisations and networks, with women and children, and with drug addiction, prostitution and AIDS. Villagers will tend to discuss all these issues together. For example, one village leader in the Wang river valley explained that, "in the beginning, when the forest was good, the activities of wild animals resulted in thousands of little pools all over the forest.