Civil Environmental Movements:

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Ambrose Higgins
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1 Civil Environmental Movements: An Alternative Approach in Assessing Natural Resource Mismanagement in Thailand Jakkrit Sangkhamanee Asian Young Leader Initiatives Forum July 2005 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 1. Introduction A former journalist and environment editor James Fahn (2003) in his book A Land on Fire states that the future of Earth s environment will be decided in Asia, home of 60 percent of the world s population and some of the world s fastest-growing economies. If Asia has such a significant role in deciding the world s future on environment, it is disconcerting to learn that most of the environment policies of Asian countries fail to be implemented in a sustainable manner or even with the participation of affected people. In most Asian countries, environmental concerns have long been dominated and decided by a limited number of groups of people especially those in corrupted, red-tape bureaucratic systems. In other words, the future of world environmental management is literally in the hands of a few powerful bureaucrats and elite technocrats in Asian governments. Obviously, in several cases, most of the people who have been affected by the environmental degradation and loss of natural resources are those who were not able to be involved in decision-making concerning environmental issues directly related to them. This article seeks to look at the environmental situation in Thailand by approaching the issue through the alternative practical framework of civil environmental movements actively established across the country. This people-stemmed sector is concretely perceived to be the changing force to today s development practices and ideologies. The central argument of this paper is that the civil environmental movements that emerged into

2 the midst of country, and regional, intensive industrialization today can be a representation of the imperfect management in environment-related issues. By shedding light on different struggles in each natural resource conflict and looking from the standing point where the contests over environment are taking place, this paper will contribute to the understanding of how environmentalism has been translated into action in the context of Thailand. Though this paper is based on case studies that happened in Thailand, however, the lesson learned can be broadened to the understanding of Asia as a whole since environmental issues in these present days know boundaries and the globalized economies vitally reinforce such phenomena. 2. Cases of Conflict over Natural Resources Throughout the region, conflicts over natural resource access and management play a big role in slowing down national economic push. Most of the conflicts, however, have generally emerged from the unequal power relations between the government and its people and it also reflects the sentiments of the Thai public towards the minority over resource sharing and benefits of development projects. This paper will take three cases of natural resource conflicts to briefly depict the arguments concerning ideologies and practices in environment management. The three cases arose in different regions of Thailand and concern diverse yet inseparable issues of resource conflicts namely: river and dam, forest and community, and lastly, seashore and gas pipeline. These cases show the contrasting frameworks in viewing nature between the technocentricism and communalism in ecopolitics. Critical study of the above cases is a pragmatic starting point in assessing the on-going contradictory practices and perspective contestation over the discourse of natural resource development. 2.1 The case of Pak Mun Dam and the Mun River Dams are the most contentious environmental issue in Southeast Asia, and perhaps the entire developing world (Fahn 2003). I have come to understand such 2

3 statements well and see how the damage dams can do in this dam-age Thai development after spending three weeks living, paddling the river, and fishing with the villagers whose dam has totally destroyed their living security and culture at Pak Mun riverine communities at the northeast border of Thailand. The book Silenced Rivers by McCully (2001) indicates that the main environmental impacts of dams at construction sites are changes in upstream and downstream morphology and hydrology, water quality, loss of biodiversity, not to mention the long-term impacts on the globe in general e.g. greenhouse gas emission, alteration of Earth polar systems and water-borne diseases. I was not surprised to find all the mentioned local impacts obviously emerge before the eyes of anyone who visits the area of Pak Mun Dam. Pak Mun Dam was funded by the World Bank and completed in 1994 amidst protests from the local people, activist students, and NGOs. Even though the dam is designed as the first run-of-the river which is expected to avoid creating a reservoir, the idea of building the dam at the mouth of the Mun river where it confluences with the Mekong is the first wrong decision made. After the dam was built, the local villagers who fundamentally fish for their living could no longer fish in the river since the dam has blocked the way fish migrate from the Mekong, in addition to the submerging of rapids which used to act as fishing ground and spiritual fishing cultural space. Some houses and land have been flooded forcing the involuntary resettlement of many communities. The affected villagers have been rallying for more than a decade asking for decent compensation from the destruction, the opening of the dam sluice gates for the return of fish, and the revival of river ecology. They even set up a new village at the dam site to articulate their losses and set up local wisdom schools to maintain the nearly lost local knowledge on fisheries and the river. Many communities along the course of the river have dispersed since the new generation is no longer be able to fish, leading to the decline of the sense of community and migration to the big cities for employment. Not only have people affected by the dam moved to find jobs in the cities, the dam has also transferred resources from the countryside to the city and from small-scale 3

4 agriculture to industry. These have become a giant symbol of industrialization, the technological apotheosis of tension between city and countryside (Fahn 2003). The tension from such a marginalized area finally had its chance to be expressed to a wider public at a very center of the capital city in Joining with others who are affected by unfair development projects across the country, the villagers of Pak Mun established the Village of the Poor on the street and footpath in front of the Government House in Bangkok. The local struggle of the Pak Mun people for their human rights and environmental security has now become a national protest movement that does not merely limit their active role in the dam issue. Instead it has become the biggest movement in Thailand that mobilizes and sustains people in non-violent attempts to force the government to address their grievances, many of which involve large-scale development projects that adversely affected various communities (Missingham 2003). By and large, the Pak Mun struggle has been a catalyst of change to civilize Thai society to criticize the mismanagement of environment and development policies. 2.2 The case of Community Forest Bill Hiking in the dense jungle in the north-westernmost province of Mae Hong Son with the Karen ethnics allowed me to learn about their ecological knowledge of the forest and how humans can interact with nature in a sustainable way. It was a totally different experience and truly shifted my paradigm in viewing nature, reminding me of what Pocahontas sings and if you walk the steps of a stranger, you ll learn things you never knew you never knew. The contesting issue of relations between man and nature especially with the forest has been an on-going debate for many decades in Thailand among environmentalconcern groups. During the last two decades, however, the idea of community forest has come to the fore due to concrete examples of how Thai forest dwellers view their living forest different from those of the urban middle-class. The holistic way of looking at the 4

5 forest by the Karen has been promoted by progressive academics and NGOs, showing that the forest is not just a natural place to be conserved for the sake of conservation and recreational purposes as practiced by the state through national park establishments. Rather, the forest can be everything to those who rely on it, ranging from food source, medicine, housing material, clothes, spiritual space, and source of income. Local people do not only have knowledge about their environment which is relevant to the specific place but also dynamic and adaptive way in how it can be utilized (Yos 2003). Regarding forest communal management, they have used many levels of regulation, combining the traditional way of multi-layered beliefs with new forms of territorialization and modern knowledge to cope with the plural rights of access, utilization, and conservation. Such complexity, however, has hardly been understood by outsiders whose knowledge is trapped through thinking of nature and human as separate. Conflicts arise when these different ideologies clash at the practical level and powerless people are forced to leave the area in which they have lived for generations. The attempt to present the community forest bill to the government and the rise of a nation-wide community forest network is an attempt not merely to give rights back to the communities to manage their own resources but also to inform the Thai public that human and nature are complement parts of each other s sustainability. The concrete example is that the slash-and-burn method of agriculture has long been viewed as a main factor in the country s deforestation. However, research done by academics from both science and social science fields argue that such a notion is a myth and further caused the unjust classification of highland ethnic groups as a backward, ignorant non-thai people (Pinkeaw 2002) and hence a threat to national security. Until today, such popular mentality led to the marginalization of communities from further integration into Thai society, provision of public facilities and services, and access to other natural resources for survival. 2.3 The case of Thai-Malaysian Gas Pipeline Project in Songkhla 5

6 Tracing back to the year 1979, the Thai and Malaysian governments signed a Memorandum of Understanding to explore the possibility of a Joint Development Area (JDA) for a new found gas reserves in the Gulf of Thailand s continental shelf that overlaps the two countries. In the early 1990s the Malaysia-Thailand Joint Authority (MYJA) was established in order to oversee and plan the development of the JDA. Based on the National Economic and Social Development Pan, the main keys to materialize the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle scheme as well as the Trans-ASEAN gas pipeline grid are the development of the petroleum industry here. However, during the signing ceremony for the gas purchasing contract in Songkhla between the two governments about a year after the establishment of MTJA, the local residents and the Assembly of Southern Students protested against the project, asking the Thai government to hold a public hearing before proceeding with any plan. According to the Constitution, any project or activity which may seriously affect the quality of the environment shall not be permitted, unless its impacts in both ecological and social terms have been studied and thoroughly assessed. In addition, participation in decision-making and sound condition of living environment are keys in civil rights under the Constitution. Those opposed to the project, however, stated that their rights to have a say in the Environmental Impact Assessment and public hearings for the project were basically ignored and rejected. Learning from the other gas pipeline projects and its tense confrontation in the country s western forest complex and the visit to the Eastern Seaboard Industrial Estate, villagers started to wonder what would happen to their fishing communities when gas pipeline and separation plants were constructed. They have considered the quality of air, water, and sand dune forest that would be altered and how their survival would be affected if their main source of livelihood were to be impacted upon. Villagers have learned that in this democratic society, those who sit passively by may have their rights and their way of life stripped from them. 6

7 Public hearings were held twice in 2000, but local inputs were not integrated. The first one was held in July but the process was obstructed by the opposition s demonstration leading the public hearing to its end, expressing it was just state propaganda and that their voices would not be heard. The conflicts in the area loomed large - opposed villages, NGOs, and local academics were threatened by different means including telephone intimidation, the spread of bad messages, and leaflets. The second hearing was conducted in October with mass protestation outside the venue and despite its controversy, the government approved the project in a rush, fearing invasion by the opposition. The long-standing of contestation led the villagers to establish Lan Hoi Siab University one year after the failure of the first public hearing. It is a university but not in the sense of the formal academic institutions we are normally familiar with. Rather it has been designed to be a localized learning center for people in the area about their still bountiful shores and to arrange activities. The university later came also to be known as protest site (Supara 2004). With so much violence occurring in the contestation between the government and the villagers, a special representative from the United Nations, Hina Jilani, went to the protest site during her nine-day visit to Thailand, behest by the Thai government. However, she later released a report saying a climate of fear persists among NGOs, independent bodies and civil groups operating in Thailand. She added that the increasingly hostile position of the state towards NGOs undermines Thailand s reputation as a strong supporter for democracy openness, and tolerance and that the growing unease reflects state criticism of NGOs at the highest levels (Supara 2004). Until today, despite existing protests, the project is still able to proceed due to the heavy police presence around the construction site. 3. New Social Movement and the Reflection on National Development Thailand today can be considered as one of the best Asian countries in terms of civil society attempting to take an active role in participating in national development. It is 7

8 the time when the Thaksin government is trying to privatize every resource of local communities, the local people at the same time are putting effort into civilizing the government s political regime. Strong networks of people with different geographical backgrounds, facing different problems, valuing different traditions, yet are joining together to strengthen their power and confirm their rights to participate in the so-called democratic system. How, then, can we interpret those civil environment movements in the context of national development, regional transformation and globalization? The people who formed these networks are those who have been marginalized from the economic development express train. They are made to lag behind by the manipulation of their rights to speak on environmental issues in the name of national benefit. On the other hand, they are not totally absent from the global scene since they are active actors in reclaiming their existence and wisdom within the public eye. Looking at these conflict cases, it is obvious that the rise of civil environmental movements today is the result of the lack of participation in managing resources of state-led development by affected parties from the beginning. The local struggles, which later on became national struggles, however, do not merely articulate their concerns or raise the questions on only specific issues. Instead they deal with the whole mentality of national ideas of development and the way the environment should be viewed as well. This, as I argue, goes beyond the simple politics of natural resources but rather shifts the debate to the abstract level of how the environment should be defined, by whom, and in what manner. As Fahn (2003) argues, conflict over dam construction also demonstrates how environmental issues are not merely fringe politics but instead are extraordinarily revealing about social values. It is apparent that those civil environmental movements do not have faith in representative democracy within the parliament system, and hence do not try to raise the concerns to their members of parliament or form their own political party for election. They believe that political powers are not only exercised in the parliament but rather dispersed throughout the society. That is why the Pak Mun people used the street in front of the 8

9 Government House to demonstrate their political power, symbolizing the contestation between the old and new ways of politics. Their actions are not only a challenge to the power of traditional politics but also a contest over definition and interpretation of sociallyconstructed situations and issues. In some Asian countries, any forms of public protest, as is the case in civil movements, are not tolerated by the government. However, there are alternative, and not disruptive, ways that the concerned public can express their feelings on issues like these. As in the mentioned cases, the strategies in legitimizing their voices also go beyond mass mobilization, media presentation, and direct negotiation with the national leader. Instead, they deploy cultural ways in articulation of their matters as well. The revitalization of ethnic culture through the promotion of community-based tourism by the Karen has been used to educate visitors about the accumulated knowledge to a nature-friendly way of living and the situation they face brought about by government policies, while the Pak Mun riverine communities perform the life-blessing ceremony to the river and the Buddhist ordination of the forest to signify the sacred space. Such symbolic representation, expression of their own identities to the wider public, and the re-interpretation of social discourse on environment and development have been attempts to counter globalization and nationalization with the localization of issues. It is a soft, yet strategically wise, way in politicize the concerned issues. The large-scale development projects in Thailand, on one hand, are still on their way towards turning environment and natural resources into commodities for unlimited economic progress under government plans and the global traditional trend. On the other hand, local people across the country still struggle over the unjust issues affecting their intertwined human and environment rights. It seems that these two streams of environmental management are going in a distinctive direction. In fact they are not separate from each other, as already shown, the civil environmental movement is an alternative approach in assessing natural resource mismanagement in Thailand. What needs to be done next is to let the wider public able to access into the right information 9

10 about the concerned issues and realize how important to critically perform their basic civil rights. This may involves media, school, religious institutions, and business sector to promote the civil and ecological awareness and take action for integrative discussion. It is an on-going process with no absolute solution. But the committed civil action is the foundation to the sustainability of the community and the future of the world. References Fahn, James D A Land on Fire: The Environmental Consequences of the Southeast Asian Boom. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. McCully, Patrick Silenced Rivers: The Ecology and Politics of Large Dams, enlarged and updated edition. London and New York: Zed Books. Missingham, Bruce D The Assembly of the Poor in Thailand: From Local Struggles to National Protest Movement. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books. Pinkaew Laungaramsri Redifining Nature: Karen Ecological Knowledge and the Challenge to the Modern Conservation Paradigm. Chennai: Earthworm Books. Supara Janchitfah The Net of Resistance. Bangkok: Campaign for Alternatives Industry Network. Yos Santasombat Biodiversity, Local knowledge, and Sustainable Development. Chiang Mai: Regional Center for Social Science and Sustainable Development. 10

Mekong Youth Assembly and International Rivers submission to John Knox, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment

Mekong Youth Assembly Mekong Youth Assembly and International Rivers submission to John Knox, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment The Mekong Youth Assembly and International