Halting Development

One of the most incredible parts of the Khon Kaen Development and Globalization program is that we are provided with the opportunity to visit a variety of communities facing issues that at once overlap and stand alone. We are left to draw our own comparisons from our experiences in each village. Our recent trip to Chiang Mai, however, allowed us to see the most extreme comparisons to date as we learned about agricultural trends, indigenous rights, and dams in Northern Thailand for the first time. I’m sure each one of us came away from the North with a somewhat altered perception of development in Thailand, but the most striking difference I saw was not between the North and Isaan, but between two communities exemplifying vastly different stages of community organization against large-scale development projects threatening their way of life.

In March we visited villages in the Na Nong Bong area. Six nearby villages had already been affected by Tungkum Limited’s mining operations when their tailings pond broke last October, leaking cyanide-contaminated water into the soil and groundwater. Tungkum limited is now seeking a license to expand their mining operations into a new area, meaning that seven more villages may be affected. The villagers who were not yet affected expressed fear for their health and livelihoods if the mine expanded. However, it was disheartening to hear that they did not think they would be able to effectively organize in protest against the mine. They were hesitant to join the People Who Love Their Hometown, an organization already working in the affected areas of Na Nong Bong, because they perceived the group as somewhat volatile and did not want to join forces with a group that already had a less-than-perfect relationship with both the government and the mine. When asked if they thought they could form their own organization, though, they sadly agreed that their community did not have the requisite local structures in place to allow for effective organization. Our meeting with them was one of the few events where that village has met together about an issue affecting their future.

After witnessing such discouraging morale, it was refreshing to meet with a community that was effectively halting the spread of a project that could be detrimental to their community. The villagers surrounding the proposed Kaeng Sua Ten dam project have been protesting its expansion, which would lead to the flooding of Thailand’s largest natural teak forest and destroy the villagers’ livelihoods. Organizers are taking a number of steps to protest the dam. They have set up watch points on the mountains on either side of the proposed dam site to ensure that no survey activities are carried out. There is a makeshift camp and cell tower set up specifically for this purpose. In addition, local monks ordained a large number of teak trees that would be lost to flooding if the dam is built. In Thai society and Buddhist culture it is highly disrespectful to harm a monk in any way. Thus, by making the trees sacred, the monks hope to make the government think twice about their actions.

So many of the protesters we’ve met have been reactionary—the protest village in Baw Keaw was founded by villagers who had already been evicted from their traditional land, villages surrounding the Rasi Salai dam are now fighting for compensation after flooding destroyed the wetlands where they farmed and collected food, the Na Nong Bong villagers are contesting the expansion of a mine that has already contaminated nearby soil and water…To see a community that is tirelessly fighting for its way of life before it is destroyed gives me hope that large-scale development projects can be stopped before they destroy everything in their path.

Chloe Ginsburg

Drake University