The Spatiality of Conservation Strategies: A Case Study from Thailand

0691-B1

Robin Roth^[1]

Abstract

Protected area establishment in inhabited forests needs to be viewed, at least in part, as a spatial re-organization of land and resource use. The transition from a landscape managed primarily through local interaction to one managed through state policy has a significant spatial component. An examination of the spatiality of conservation is critical to an improved understanding, and resolution, of park-people conflict. This paper examines a model of sustainable land use promoted by Thai conservationists and government foresters who are trying to establish Mae Tho National Park in the hills of Northern Thailand. Amongst policies encouraging a transition from swidden to market agriculture and to private land ownership, the model promotes the delineation of static boundaries in locales where resource uses take on overlapping, dynamic qualities. The model thus constitutes a spatial re-organization of local management systems.

This paper draws on qualitative and quantitative research conducted in two communities at different stages of the re-organization. The results show that most households suffer from rice shortage and have difficulty selling any produce. Meanwhile the hardening of once flexible management systems has contributed to less community cooperation and choice in farming activities, increased inter-community conflict and the erosion of community institutions for land allocation. Consequently villagers would like to re-establish old territories, thwarting government efforts to establish a National Park. The author concludes that some of these negative social outcomes can be addressed by abandoning the effort to spatially separate people from forest and instead building partnerships of co-management where conservation and livelihood objectives are sought in the same space. The case has implications for the design and negotiation of conservation mechanisms in areas of dense human habitation.

International pressure to preserve tropical forest is intensifying at the same time that the density of people living in these forested environments is increasing. A strong conservation agenda coupled with a growing civil society movement challenges governments to find ways of maximizing environmental goods and services for both the global commons and local human needs. Protected Areas remain the mechanism of choice and while many argue that they prove effective in preventing land clearing and biodiversity loss (Bruner, Gullison et al. 2001), inhabited forest poses particular challenges to conventional conservation methods. There is well- documented evidence that National Parks in areas of dense human population lead to conflict between residents of the area and park staff (West and Brechin 1991; Ghimire 1997). Meanwhile adaptations to these conventional conservation tools have had mixed reviews (Barrett and Arcese 1995; Nepal and Weber 1995; Brown 2002). The Thai government, like many governments in the tropical world, has ambitious conservation goals while facing increasing conflict in protected areas. This paper uses a case study from Thailand to clarify the role of space in this difficult story of providing for local livelihoods while preserving forest cover and biodiversity.

Protected area establishment in inhabited areas needs to be viewed, at least in part, as a spatial re-organization of land and resource use. The process reclassifies land and re-orders human-environment relationships in a region. Local use and management of land and forest resources mobilizes a nuanced multidimensional spatiality^[2]. Whereas state-led conventional conservation mechanisms mobilize a two dimensional system of spatial organization, where firmly bounded areas are demarcated as human-free zones of forest preservation or as zones of limited use and lines of equal rigidity are drawn around zones for human habitation. Thus, the transition from a landscape managed primarily through local interaction to one managed through state policy has a significant spatial component.

This paper draws on 18 months of fieldwork conducted in Chiang Mai province, Northern Thailand where the author used quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the establishment of Mae Tho National Park in areas inhabited by local farmers. A Thai non-government organization and government foresters are piloting a model for sustainable land use that constitutes a spatial re-organization of local management systems. It finds that conservation policy operates through a two-dimensional spatial logic, which, when imposed upon the multi-dimensional spatiality of local resource use, can cause social hardship and lead to increased conflict. This paper first delves into the more traditional land use patterns of Ban Pracha and then describes the model of sustainable livelihood promoted by government and non-government agencies. Second, it examines the land use patterns of Ban Insom, a village that has made many of the suggested changes. Third, it outlines the results of the spatial re-organization undergone by Ban Insom. The conclusion discusses how understanding the spatial component of park establishment might alter conservation mechanisms in inhabited forest and makes recommendations for the resolution of conflicts within and around Mae Tho National Park.

Ban Pracha: ‘traditional’^[3] land use and management

Ban Pracha is an example of ‘traditional’ management and use. Agricultural production is primarily for subsistence needs with less than 35% of the households participating in minimal cash crop production. Only 16% of households have permanent fields or gardens. Less than 1% of households have padi rice. Villagers practice a six-year shifting cultivation cycle with communal decisions regarding which field to plant, building fire breaks and when to burn. Each household has its own plot within the larger field and is responsible for clearing, planting, weeding and harvesting their own plot. This is done, however, through a strong tradition of Aw Mue or informal labor sharing where friends and relatives help on, and harvest from, each other’s fields. Village agricultural activities are intertwined with forest based activities such as gathering vegetables, mushrooms, medicinal herbs and firewood.

Pracha Village is not a static landscape, nor does it have a static management system, instead it exhibits the qualities of multidimensional space. Its multidimensionality can be seen in an analysis of both land use patterns and village understanding of boundaries.

An analysis of land use patterns makes it evident that activities vary by type and extent seasonally and depending on who is participating. Their activity patterns expand in some instances and intensify in others. For example, during the hot months, when most of the vegetables in the fields have been eaten, people rely more heavily on forest products. Men walk further and more frequently to cut building materials and to hunt for animals while women gather vegetables more intensively around rivers and other prolific gathering spots. In the rainy season, villagers gather bamboo shoots and mushrooms but spend most of their time weeding their swidden fields. In the cold season, women gather firewood several times a day in order to keep warm and to cook food. While both men and women participate in almost every activity, women tend to choose places nearer the village while men are more likely to travel further away.

Activity is not evenly distributed across each land use category but instead land use patterns vary in intensity. For instance the conservation forest is by far the most valuable forest. The villagers ranked it as the most important place for gathering vegetables, mushrooms and medicinal herbs. Notably, villagers identified specific sites of value and did not attribute equal value to the entire area. For example, Pawsuidawklo within the community forest is the most important site for gathering two varieties of bamboo. Also, the places villagers generally choose do not exist for them in a forest category or in a particular land use zone but are chosen for their convenience and proximity to primary activities. So roadsides and trails on the way to the fields or to the cattle’s grazing land, are sites of intensive opportunistic gathering. Land use patterns are best understood then, not as homogenous land use units, but as networks linking favorite sites, which vary in their extent and intensity by season and by gender of the collector.

The expansive forest use pattern of the residents of Ban Pracha is critical to their survival and the possibility of limiting it has caused conflict. In 2001 the Royal Forestry Department (RFD) proposed to establish a park sub-district station near the conservation forest of Ban Pracha. This was met with staunch opposition and so the RFD elected to move the station further along the road, past the conservation forest. In the first instance, the location was within a few hundred meters of where the villagers conduct animist ceremonies. In the second instance the villagers feared that the RFD would cut off road access to their deciduous community forest, where certain species - importantly, bamboo - could be found. It was the potential loss of a meaningful community space that caused the villagers to reject the second site. Once the RFD understood the reason behind the conflict, they set out to find a ‘free’ space but upon examination, every place within Ban Pracha’s territory has at least one important use, if not several. For example, the swidden fields are the primary source of rice and vegetables during rainy and cold seasons but they are also a critical source of firewood, land for cattle grazing and small animals. Many households have also begun to grow cash crops for one year before allowing the site to grow fallow. Additionally the swidden fields are cultural sites for exchange and spirit worship. In sum, Ban Pracha’s land use patterns are multiple and extremely variable. They do not conform to 2D spatial units but instead form extensive networks of opportunistic gathering between sites of more intensive use.

In analyzing the ideas about and presence of boundaries, it is evident that residents of Ban Pracha do not adhere to strict lines of division. Villagers often explained that there are not clear boundaries between villages but that much of the land is used together with villagers from the surrounding area. One farmer shook his head when asked about gathering on land of a neighboring village and explained “The forest products are not just theirs, they are ours also, they are nature.” The boundary then, is commonly understood to be a boundary of responsibility, not use. It is only villagers from Ban Pracha who may cultivate crops or cut trees within their boundaries, but villagers from outside may come in and collect forest products. Likewise, villagers from Ban Pracha may collect forest products and graze cattle outside their boundaries. This flexibility of use is demonstrated further by inter-household interactions. During clearing, burning, weeding and harvesting seasons, households regularly help each other in the fields. Villagers also gather vegetables from each other’s fields without the need to seek permission first. This privilege does not extend to rice, however, or to cash crops. Furthermore tenure is not static in that if one household doesn’t have enough land they will ‘borrow’ land from another household. The borrowing extends to families in neighboring villages as well.

In short, the landscape of Ban Pracha village has overlapping and flexible boundaries; its’ multiple spaces and networks of use vary in intensity and expansiveness. These characteristics reflect a multidimensional spatiality more common to local resource users.

Spatial re-organization and conservation

Within the boundaries of Mae Tho National Park the RFD, with the help of a Thai NGO, has been working with many local villages similar to Ban Pracha, to move land use towards a model of sustainability. Consistent with 2D spatial assumptions of conventional conservation policy, these management prescriptions aim to delineate a static boundary between a zone of intensified land use and a zone of preserved forest. The model categorizes village land into agriculture land, community forest, watershed forest, conservation forest, burial forest and housing land. Management prescriptions include the reduction or elimination of shifting cultivation, the promotion of permanent cultivation and cash cropping, and a transition from community management of agricultural fields to private household ownership. The model of sustainable land use is very much rooted in two-dimensional space. It attempts to draw firm boundaries between villages, between household land holdings, between forest and agriculture. Each of these zones have a set of spatially homogenous rules attached to them. The current park superintendent is starting to delineate zones of use around each village that contain their farming land and house land, thus delineating a firm boundary between village land and park land.

Ban Insom: a village re-organized in two dimensions

Ban Insom has had continual involvement with the RFD and Thai NGOs since the beginning of park establishment. In the past 8 years they have reduced their shifting cultivation cycle from 7 years to 3, 4 or 5 years depending on the household. Accompanying this reduction is an increase in cash crop production, including cabbage, capsicum peppers and beans. Fruit orchards are largely for local consumption. Approximately 68% of households have some form of permanent cultivation, rice padi or fruit orchard (as opposed to 17% in Ban Pracha). When a local NGO created land use maps for the village, they encouraged private ownership over both swidden and permanent cultivation fields. This has resulted in individual decision-making regarding planting and largely a household crop management system with a declining presence of the traditional Aw Mue system.

Despite these changes, Ban Insom remains dependent on forest, particularly in the hot season and particularly for poorer households. Ban Insom has created a Village Conservation Committee, which overseas the cutting of wood, the patrolling of the forest and is in charge of enforcing land use rules. Activity patterns in forested areas are somewhat more compact than in Ban Pracha. Villagers frequent the conservation forest and watershed forest only when on the way to swidden fields. The dry dipterocarp community forest provides the most benefit; villagers rank areas within it as most important for gathering vegetables, mushrooms, medicinal herbs, firewood and bamboo. A general rule in both villages is that if it can be found close, it will be gathered close. Consequently villagers from the three sub villages in Om Sung use the areas closest to their fields and homes the most. Women rarely travel further than their fields while men travel the furthest for valued forest products such as pak waan, which is a tree shoot frequently gathered outside village boundaries.

Despite the obvious variety in land use patterns, this village exhibits some traits of two-dimensional space that can be seen by analyzing boundaries and activity patterns. Like Ban Pracha, Ban Insom also contains eight land use categories but has a longer history of rigidly managing them. Villagers were very aware of what was inside Ban Insom and what was outside. When asked if they collect anything just north of their homes (a distance of perhaps 50 meters), residents responded “No, that is Ban Nong. We only collect in our own village” and then explained further that if a wild pig from Ban Nong came across into Ban Insom, they could hunt it, but they could not hunt it within the boundaries of Ban Nong. This is an exception to the ‘closer is better’ rule. Village boundaries relate to both use and responsibility making their activity patterns limited to their own territory. Even within their own territory, forest activity patterns are concentrated in the community forest, as described above. Boundaries between households are also much more strict. Villagers often explained to me that if a household didn’t have enough land, they could ask to borrow from a friend but that the friend could always say ‘no’. In sum, activity patterns in Ban Insom reflect a greater degree of attention paid to boundaries and ownership than those in Ban Pracha.

Impacts of Spatial Re-Organization

The management prescriptions indicative of two dimensional conservation policy, mainly the reduction of shifting cultivation fields along with a rigid enforcement of boundaries, has had five significant effects. First, residents report some increase in forest cover and coinciding increase in small game such as wild chicken. Villagers see this as a result of their improved fire control and forest protection activities.

Second, it has contributed to decreased inter-family and inter-community cooperation. Many villagers expressed that families only worked their own fields and that the practice of sharing the work was declining. As one farmer stated, “We don’t really help each other any more. People are more interested in their own fields.” In addition, conflict amongst families and sub-villages is increasing, with individual families wanting clearer ownership rights over their swidden fields. There are numerous debates about whether land that was once borrowed now belongs to the borrower or the lender.

Third, there is decreased flexibility in planting. As one villager stated, “Before we could choose the land, we could choose land with good soil so we could plant. Wherever the soil was good we could farm there. Now we cannot do that. Now we farm on a three-year cycle. This is not good but the park will not let us do longer than that.” This statement demonstrates the fuzziness of the boundary between community forest and agricultural land. In the past no such distinction existed, instead all suitable community forest areas were potential agricultural sites for one year and all agricultural sites were future and past community forest.

Fourth, it has contributed to a decreasing rice yield. While both Ban Insom and Ban Pracha report rice shortages, a greater percentage of villagers in Ban Insom run out of rice earlier in the year. Ban Insom is more dependent on outside sources of income and this is reflected in a higher average annual income (see Table 1). Ban Insom villagers insist, however, that there has not been adequate market access to offset losses in rice yields and they feel insecure in their ability to provide for their families.

Fifth, and related to the drop in rice yields, is a re-expansion into old swidden fields not used for decades. Villagers, knowing of the impending park, were re-establishing swidden fields and ownership over areas fallow for over ten years. They explained that if they didn’t cut the big trees now, they would not be able to do so in the future. There was a strong sense that whatever was decided now in the landscape would be fixed. This re-expansion threatens efforts to contain human land use in a concentrated area, making the establishment of a conventional National Park difficult. In addition, many villagers are beginning to attend rallies and demonstrations against the park, whereas two years ago they were largely in support of its’ establishment.

While Ban Insom has seen some increase in forest cover and the accompanying small game, this may be shortlived with an increasing desire to re-expand their fields. The attempt to contain human land use in a smaller area and trying to preserve forest in another area may prove unsuccessful in the long term, without a secure source of food and/or monetary income to prevent the desire of villagers to expand swidden fields^[4]. Ban Pracha faces challenges and has its own development goals but with only 27% of its households having rice shortages before May 1st, they are, on the whole, more secure in their ability to provide adequate food through a combination of swidden farming and forest product gathering. They have thus, not expressed a need to expand their fields.

Mae Tho has a fragmented forest with high a population density who have little access to alternative livelihoods. Villagers throughout the region are resisting efforts to intensify their land use because they believe it will result in low rice yields and high input costs such as pesticides and fertilizers. They are asking for secure access to their entire territory, including the forest, suggesting the park can have whatever is ‘left’. Villagers need to gather firewood, vegetables, and medicinals from all areas of their territory and from outside the limited space given to them by park officials. They fear being denied access to certain areas that are integral to their livelihood and in some extreme cases, the villagers feared not being allowed to continue farming their swidden fields. It is increasingly apparent that while the villagers understand and practice forest conservation, they will not accept a park that adopts such a rigid division between park land and village land. The demarcation of strict boundaries creates conflict and lessens cooperation, as they have in Ban Omsung. The results of this study put into question the feasibility of a conventional national park model in Mae Tho.

Conclusion

Examining the spatial dimension of park establishment and local livelihoods demonstrates that the spatial incompatibility of conventional conservation policy and local resource management plays a role in much of the conflict surrounding the protection of inhabited landscapes. By understanding the spatiality of such conflict, practitioners can possibly envision ways that conventional two-dimensional management can borrow certain characteristics from the multi-dimensionality of local resource use and management in order to alleviate conflict. For example, buffer zones could be designed with an eye to the spatial extent and seasonal variation in local resource patterns and the endeavor to strictly demarcate household land could be abandoned where appropriate to allow for multiple managers.

In the case of Mae Tho National Park, the efforts to condense village land use inside buffer zones and then ‘free up’ forest land for inclusion in the national park, ignores the reality that there is little, if any, unused space inside the Mae Tho region. Villagers currently depend upon non-intensive, but expansive, use of the land resources and they feel that to give that up would compromise their ability to survive in their homes. Conflict in the area is increasing and it is rooted in the pursuit of establishing park land spatially separate from village land. The rigidity of the National Park model, even with buffer zones, ignores the variety and extensiveness of activity patterns. Consequently, in Mae Tho, moving towards a model of Joint Management where livelihood and conservation goals are addressed cooperatively in the same space is perhaps the only way that both a protected area will be established and the rights of Thai citizens respected.

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