Biodiversity, Protected Areas and the Spectre of ‘Monocropping’ in Northern Thailand
Andrew Walker, Australian National University
Northern Thailand is often regarded as a biodiversity ‘hot spot.’ According to one commentator ‘there are more species found on one mountain in northern Thailand than in some entire countries.’ Over the past three decades, this abundant biodiversity has motivated key regulatory interventions into the management of natural resources in the region. State systems of land classification, combined with administrative measures such as the declaration of national parks and wildlife conservation areas, seek to protect the abundant biodiversity against the encroachments of farmers, hunters, traders and loggers. Despite the large number of people living in upland forest areas, a classic ‘protected area’ paradigm has informed many of these regulatory interventions with local systems of resource management increasingly marginalised by state action. In response, there has been a vigorous ‘grass roots’ campaign promoting the indigenous ecological knowledge of local people and asserting a close relationship between cultural diversity and biodiversity. However, despite their important disagreements, both sides in this biodiversity management debate share the underlying view that upland biodiversity is in crisis and both are inclined to point the finger of blame at upland commercialization and ‘monocropping,’ biodiversity’s symbolic antithesis. There is vigorous political debate about the impact of local communities on biodiversity and their role in its management, but both sides use the symbols of biodiversity crisis—and the spectre of monocropping—to add strength to their political claims. This paper examines the emergence of this ‘discourse coalition’ in relation to northern Thailand’s biodiversity and proposes some alternative, and more empowering, ways of viewing the relationship between human activity and the upland environment.
