The Racial Distribution of Privilege in a Thai National Park

Competition for rights to manage and use natural resources has emerged as one of the most obstinate challenges facing the states and peoples of the uplands of mainland Southeast Asia. Since the late 1970s, the Thai state has responded to pressure on the nation's resources with a major expansion of protected areas. Yet, putting land and resources under heavy restriction has only contributed to competition and dissension among local communities and between communities and the state. (1) In a few cases, people have accommodated the protected areas in their midst, and some have worked out effective co-management relationships that facilitate both local livelihoods and park objectives. But many other communities have been far less successful. (2) This article explores the conditions that promote cooperation between protected area managers and local communities in Thailand. I argue that different outcomes for different communities can largely be explained by political, economic and discursive structures and the interests, attitudes and actions they promote. Given the structural conditions, some communities have significant advantages in their ability to advocate for themselves, receive official recognition, and conclude satisfying compromises with protected areas. I also describe two strategies that local people and their allies are using to secure state recognition and concessions: one involves claims about indigenous knowledge, the other rights based on citizenship. In particular, I highlight the pitfalls of the indigenous knowledge strategy, which to be effective requires official recognition that particular groups possess the knowledge and capacity to manage their resources--the very recognition that the current structure of inequality in Thai society tends to discourage. The specific case presented here involves contrasting outcomes for Tai Lue and Lua people in their relations with Doi Phukha National Park (DPNP), Nan Province, northern Thailand. Seven largely Tai Lue villages have developed an effective co-management relationship with the park while 12 Lua villages remain in conflict with it. In the Tai Lue case, park officials allow villagers to collect forest products in their 1,600-hectare community forest, which lies within the park. The Tai Lue cooperate with park officials by policing the community forest against encroachment and helping them achieve certain policy objectives. The community forest is a thriving mixed deciduous forest, (3) and its resources are used sustainably--perhaps the best possible outcome for a protected area with a resident rural population. The Lua, however, lack any real cooperative relationship with the park. Officials subject the Lua to constant unwanted pressure to alter their livelihoods, while the Lua seek to stymie official objectives through stonewalling, as well as occasional confrontations and direct action. The result has been stalemate as both sides struggle to pursue their goals, often unsuccessfully. The Lua situation has from the start more potential for difficulty: their villages and farms are completely encompassed by DPNP. The Tai Lue communities claim rights to their community forest within the park, but their village sites and paddy lands lie in a valley outside of it. Mere location, however, does not fully account for different outcomes in relations with the park. Formal policy structures that allow DPNP officials to work more cooperatively with the Lua are in place, but have not been used to their fullest. I argue that the hostile relationship between the Lua and the park is rooted in the subordinate political, economic and racial position of the Lua in the local and national context. (4) The Lua, while feeling the tightened pinch of state regulation of land and resources, must also contend with a racialised discourse that portrays 'hill tribes' (chao khao) like them as inherently malignant to the environment. Institutions through which they might advocate their claims, like local government and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), have not served them well to this point. …