The Importance of Land

For the past two weeks we have explored issues of land tenure and land rights in urban and rural Thailand. During this time we read about issues, sat through economics lectures, and lived alongside three different communities currently wrestling the government for recognition of land ownership. As we learned about the history of land ownership, the changes in land ownership, and arguments as well as counter-arguments for who owns pieces of land, several of us were feeling like there was a disconnect. Land ownership being discussed as a human right was a hard concept to wrap our heads around, and I couldn’t figure out why.

I didn’t discover the origin of this disconnect until post-trip. After each trip, we are given two days to reflect on the meaning of the unit, to synthesize our understandings of the issues, and delve into global connections. One of our reflection questions asked, “Looking back at the US, what is your own connection to land?” The answer to this question and other US-related questions shed light on this disconnect I’d previously been experiencing. In that moment I realized why land rights, in a place like Thailand, need to be understood as human rights. Growing up in Hawaii, I lived on my land, not off of it. This distinction makes all the difference when it comes to the importance of land. The ¾ of an acre I grew up on was for luxury- for me to play tag on and later to spend time reading there. It was completely disconnected from either of my parents’ income. Yes, we could always mortgage our house for extra money, but the direct connection between my quality of life and where I lived was insignificant and hard to see.

In the areas we visited, this direct connection between quality of life and land ownership was far from anything I’d ever experienced before. Now that I’ve made this connection I am able to look back on our homestay experiences of this past week and I am able to see the gravity of the problem.

Toong Lui Lai, one of the communities we stayed with, was established in the 50’s. Since that point in time generations of families have established themselves as community members and primarily as farmers. Somewhere along the way the government declared their village as residing under the newly established Federal Reserve Forest area, thus making villagers technical trespassers. Shortly after this declaration, conflicts between the villagers and the government arose. Since 1973, over 100 individuals from Toong Lui Lai have been charged and put through the judicial system for using the land their families have worked on for over 20 years. When people are prevented from farming, their main source of income, and are ordered to pay fines equal to $3,000 per ½ acre worked on, there is more to the conflict than legal issues, it becomes issues of humanity. Most families we encountered have no other source of income besides farming on their land and without the ability to do so they’d need to pick up their families and move to an urban area and start from scratch. The futures of their families are at stake due to land politics.

Looking at how my own family’s income is far from related to our land explains why I didn’t initially understand. In taking away my front (or back) yard there’d just be fewer places for me to lay out- it would have no effect on future generations of my family. I will never be able to truly relate to the challenges that our friends in Toong Lui Lai experience due to their intense connections to the land, but what I can do is work towards understanding why land ownership is so important here in Thailand.

I now see land as more than a parcel or area of soil; I see it as a gateway to other rights and freedoms that contribute to increasing and protecting someone’s quality of life. As issues surrounding land here in Thailand are becoming clear to me, I am left wondering about what other issues I’ve overlooked due to my American understanding of a concept. Although this is a big question, I know that the only way to understand more is to open myself up to the challenges of this program and to not only evaluate what’s going on in Thailand, but what’s going on in my backyard as well.

Maddisen Domingo
Occidental College

Definitions of Sustainability

As Paw walked ahead of me in the silent forest, the only audible noise was the soft crackling of leaves beneath his peeling leather boots. Sometimes he stopped, motioning and speaking in mumbled Thai towards one perfect rubber tree or a blackened kettle collecting sap beneath it. I followed blindly, looking on in disturbed awe and trying to process each identical, evenly spaced, vibrant green tree.

It may be easy to understand why one could be against the growth of such an unnatural, albeit beautiful, forest, as arguments of environmental concerns like soil depletion and mono-cropping arise. However, it is more difficult to comprehend why twenty liberal American students studying agricultural systems and environmental sustainability would be in support of these kinds of forests. What is the rationale for siding with villagers who aim to use their land to grow entirely unsustainable, invasive species like rubber or eucalyptus trees?

In understanding this dilemma, it is vital to understand varying definitions of sustainability, and whether this term can be understood in the way many idealistic students fantasize it to be.

In Toong Lui Lai, villagers have been struggling with the government for years in order to gain the rights to lease land their families have cultivated for centuries. Throughout the years, the government has implemented new policies for “environmental protection” and created “preserved” spaces, like “Wildlife Sanctuaries” and “National Protection Parks.” In doing so, they have indiscriminately redrawn land ownership borders without the consent or consultation of rural communities. As a result, many villagers that depend on the land have lost the rights to land that their families have cultivated for decades. Additionally, because the Thai government is increasingly striving to compete in a global export economy, there is more pressure on small-scale farmers to produce cash crops that will be readily sold on the market, rather than merely producing food to sustain themselves or neighboring communities. Thus, even if small scale farmers like Paw continue to cultivate and harvest their land, economic pressure forces them away from doing so in a sustainable way, the way their grandparents once farmed.

Based on this, it may seem that the government’s plan of “protecting” these natural spaces is more sustainable. However, rather than legitimizing its environmental protection claims, the Thai government often takes advantage of the land it obtains from villagers. Profits are made from this land as it becomes used for eco-tourism, sold to large corporations to be developed or even used by the government itself to grow cash crops like rubber and eucalyptus.

Thus, both sides of this debate over land use seem unable to effectively manage land in a sustainable way. So, instead of siding against all parties, it seems we tried to choose the lesser of the two evils: unsustainable practices by small scale farmers. Though many would like to go back to producing their own food and refraining from chemical fertilizers or cash crops, in many ways they are forced into this system. When villagers attempt to use their land to grow crops that do not require the chemicals required for many cash crops, they often remain unable to sell such crops in mass. There is no standard measurement of “organic” in Thailand and thus “organic” is not as valuable or marketable as it is in the United States.

After living with these families and attempting to understand the power dynamic that they are constrained by, it seems that many of us decided that it makes more sense to support those individuals that want to be sustainable (even if they are not), rather than the entities that often secretly choose to maintain such unsustainable practices.
I repeatedly nodded in faux understanding and genuine support, as my Paw attempted to explain the process of extracting sap from the rubber trees on his property. However, I still feel unable to reconcile my clear-cut definitions of sustainability with the complicated reality that I face in Thailand.

Joanna French
Whitman College

Development and Sustainability

Just last week I was in Baw Kaew, a protest village in Northeastern Thailand. There, villagers are continuing their 30-year struggle against the Thai government for taking over their land to develop a eucalyptus tree plantation. The protest village is illegally set up in the midst of eucalyptus trees. Back in the 1970’s as part of the national development plan, the government believed they were aiding reforestation by planting eucalyptus as a cash crop, which expanded industry. In reality, the plantation took over local villagers’ farmland.

This past unit looked at the impact of government policies on land. In addition to visiting Baw Kaew, we had a home stay in a forest village community named Toong Lui Lai. Near the forest village, the government established area as the National Forest Reserve and then later the Wildlife Sanctuary, which designated land for preservation by arbitrarily drawing borders that overlapped with local villagers land. Subsequently, villagers have been arrested and charged for trespassing while farming for what villagers believe is their land. To give voice to their struggles, both Toong Lui Lai and Baw Kaew communities have united with the Isaan Land Reform Network of Thailand to go protest in Bangkok and ultimately to help them attain legal community land titles.

Today, I find myself back in the city considering the greater implications of these villagers’ long-term struggle against the government’s policies and actions. Considering the issues from the villagers’ perspective, it is easy to vilify the government and its policies. The government policies have created challenges to attain adequate living conditions and retain their means of livelihood and subsistence. Development and globalization often times jeopardizes the human rights of people as well as the sustainability of communities. The community visits show the trickling down affect of policy on the community members. The networks, NGOs and community organizers give voice and legitimacy to the people’s problems. . As I think about the bigger picture, I am questioning the roles and responsibilities of the government to its people in causing and curing these larger issues.

One important distinction that I learned is the difference between sustainable-development and development. According to the World Health Organization, “Development can be achieved at the expense of future generations' survival, whereas sustainable development specifically seeks to achieve development in a long-term environmental framework that provides for the survival of future generations.” I find it unproductive to vilify the government and constantly fight against it. It seems that Thailand, like other countries is in a compromising situation by taking on more development initiatives rather than sustainable development. The problem is that industrial development comes at the expense of the local villagers. With conflicting interests in mind, sometimes the issues and problems faced between the government and community seem overwhelming.

When we asked P’Pramote, one of the NGOs we met with on land reform issues about the key way to affect change he gave his answer in a series of steps.

1. Understand the root of the issue.
2. After understanding, analyze where it comes from and how it functions.
3. Figure out where you fit in the structure to create social change.

As I come to understand the concerns of the communities we visit, the roles and responsibility of government is becoming clearer. P’Pramote’s advice is applicable not just to the community organizer working at the grassroots level, but it is also applicable in addressing the inadequacies from the top-down policy level. In either position, it is important to understand the system by which policies are shaped and formed, because in fact they eventually affect the people.

Jennifer Schwarz
University of Maryland

The Cost of Rubber

The most recent unit that we have finished was focused on land issues in the northeast region of Thailand called Isaan. Over the course of our unit trip, we as students uncovered a variety of issues linked to land controversies throughout Isaan. The most prevalent land issue that we witnessed was farm land taken from local people to be “preserved” by the Thai government.

We spent the majority of our trip in Toong Lui Lai, a village in the Chailaphum province of Isaan. The Toong Lui Lai landscape is incredible; lush green mountains towering over diminutive villages that scattered about the forests. The families throughout our homestay were more than welcoming, they became family. As our bonds became closer, we began to delve into the land issues facing the Toong Lui Lai villagers.

As a result of inaccurate land surveying by the Thai government, many innocent Thai people have been deemed “illegal” and therefore unable to use their family’s farm land. Instead of being cultivated by local people with local wisdom, the land is now used for preserving Thai nature by not allowing anyone to grow anything on it. The land is, however, turned into a variety of tourist attractions to promote more commerce and more economic development in the depleted Isaan region. Golf courses, eco-tourist resorts, or even “get your picture taken by the dam!” signs are now the appeals to get people to come to the northeast. Yet the damage that has been done to the native people is far more detrimental than anything the government could come up with. Or is it?

In the mid 1990’s, the government began distributing free rubber tree seeds and chemical fertilizers in an effort to make Thailand a leader in raw rubber material production. Many farmers throughout Thailand, mainly in the economically deprived Isaan region, were convinced to grow rubber trees versus an edible crop like corn or sugarcane. These ideas were later reinforced once Thaksin became prime minister in 2001, instituting “Thaksinomics”. One of the cornerstones of Thaksinomics is the phrase “One Tambon, One Product”, which indicates every subdistrict should focus its efforts on producing one product. In this case, rubber trees were the focus of the Toong Lui Lai village. Today, the majority of farmers in Toong Lui Lai and its surrounding villages grow primarily rubber trees.

Because rubber trees require farmers to use chemical fertilizers in its growth, farmers are now exposed to a variety of health problems. Moreover, the land that was once the farmer’s land, in an extremely muddled and unclear manner, is now owned and looked after by the government. As a result, farmers can now be charged with criminal trespassing and a civil lawsuit of violating global warming agreements, because of the use of chemical fertilizers and the growth of an environmentally unfriendly crop like rubber, Thailand made in the Kyoto Protocol. Thus is the dilemma of where do we go from here?

In 2011, the price of raw rubber material is estimated to double from $3600 a ton to $6300, due to its demand in China, the United States, and India. Therefore, it is in Thailand’s best economic interests to continue to grow rubber trees, although they are somewhat unnatural to the area they are grown in and their upkeep requires unsafe chemicals to both the environment and the farmer. However, Thailand must also uphold what it agreed to in the Kyoto Protocol and has a significant amount to gain from reclaiming land to be sold for carbon credits, although the farmers of the region are the ones paying the fines for “global warming” not the government. Overall, Thailand has a lot to gain in its GDP and a lot to lose in its weak efforts to care for its citizens.

Michalea Larson
University of Connecticut

A Sustainable Life

Picture a farm. What do you see? A red barn, beautiful green pasture, rolling hills; perhaps you even imagine the sweet smell of cut hay and warm air brushing against your arms? Or do you imagine acres upon acres of corn. Or do you find yourself imagining a feedlot filled with mooing cattle and the stench of manure invading your senses.

Farms are something we grow up learning about. Old McDonald had a happy little farm with chickens, cows, pigs, horses, and a beautiful garden. We can only imagine that he also lived organically and sustainably. Of course his family was happy, well fed and had everything they could ever want. They weren’t worried about making a profit, or protecting their land from pollution.

Where is the reality in that story, I wonder? We are told everyday that farmers are disappearing and corporations are snatching up the scraps. Food is unsafe, filled with chemicals, and production is destroying the world.

Of course there has been a move towards living sustainably and organically, but until last week I didn’t see how we could ever go back to the happy story of Old McDonald.

Not until I saw my 73-year-old Pa plow his fields barefooted with a water buffalo did I see the truth and beauty in organic, sustainable farming. It’s not as if I didn’t believe it was best for the world and ourselves but I just wasn’t sure if it was possible to go back to the time before big machinery and chemicals.

According to my Meh who is 61 years old, they plow their nearly 15 acres of land with one water buffalo, use no chemical fertilizers or pesticides, grow nearly 100 varieties of plants, and loves her life. When I asked her if she had difficulties raising five children while farming, she said “No.” They grew their own food, didn’t owe anyone money, and didn’t need buy candies, or motorcycles to be happy. Her children have since gone to school to study agriculture but are planning to return in the next two years to begin learning from their Meh and Pa.

After seeing this perfectly sustainable system of life, I find myself confused. How can this family exist in rural Thailand living in such a way that they aren’t in debt, and have extra food to share and money to spare? They aren’t involved in contract farming; yet still find a market for their produce. They don’t suffer any health problems but are at the top end of the average life expectancy in Thailand.

When I was standing in the field watching my Pa plow his land with the dirt crumbling between his toes my Meh was nearby gathering long beans. The sun was setting; I could hear the cows grazing in the next field and I suddenly realized that this is what a real farm is. Organic and sustainable farming doesn’t mean having a sticker that says you don’t use chemicals; it means living in such a way that you understand the world around you in a way that is completely new to most Americans. It means working with the world to sustain ourselves not against it. It also requires considering what is necessary in our lives, what can we do without and what is just extra.

The first step is to just be aware of our impact. Once we do this we can begin to live a life that is more sustainable. And eventually, when we imagine a farm with a big red barn and green pastures, it will be a reality all over the world. Perhaps for me, I’ll imagine a Pa plowing his land with a water buffalo as the sun drifts below the horizon.

Kristi Huckabone
George Washington University