University of Washington Press Forest Guardians, Forest Destroyers: The Politics of Environmental Knowledge in Northern Thailand (Culture, Place, and Nature)

In this far-reaching examination of environmental problems and politics in northern Thailand, Tim Forsyth and Andrew Walker analyze deforestation, water supply, soil erosion, use of agrochemicals, and biodiversity in order to challenge popularly held notions of environmental crisis. They argue that such crises have been used to support political objectives of state expansion and control in the uplands. They have also been used to justify the alternative directions advocated by an array of NGOs. In official and alternative discourses of economic development, the peoples living in Thailand's hill country are typically cast as either guardians or destroyers of forest resources, often depending on their ethnicity. Political and historical factors have created a simplistic, misleading, and often scientifically inaccurate environmental narrative: Hmong farmers, for example, are thought to exhibit environmentally destructive practices, whereas the Karen are seen as linked to and protective of their ancestral home. Forsyth and Walker reveal a much more complex relationship of hill farmers to the land, to other ethnic groups, and to the state. They conclude that current explanations fail to address the real causes of environmental problems and unnecessarily restrict the livelihoods of local people. The authors' critical assessment of simplistic environmental narratives, as well as their suggestions for finding solutions, will be valuable in international policy discussions about environmental issues in rapidly developing countries. Moreover, their redefinition of northern Thailand's environmental problems, and their analysis of how political influences have reinforced inappropriate policies, demonstrate new ways of analyzing how environmental science and knowledge are important arenas for political control. This book makes valuable contributions to Thai studies and more generally to the fields of environmental science, ecology, geography, anthropology, and political science, as well as to policy making and resource management in the developing world. Review Forest Guardians, Forest Destroyers succeeds in its primary mission to destabilize commonly held assumptions about upland agriculture, especially perceived effects downslope, such as erosion, pollution, or water shortages. . . . [It] is well written, and it provides engaging, revisionist critiques that will surely generate a lot of response--especially among the many environmentalist groups active in this region.--H-Environment Forsyth and Walker raise provocative questions about the environmental situation in northern Thailand. Their critical dissection of environmental narratives forces the reader to rethink assumptions. Grounded in thorough research, they offer a valuable contribution to environmental studies in Thailand. Their book is well worth reading, and it promotes thinking about the complexities of the situations they discuss . . . . they challenge how we think which is crucial to moving the social and political understandings of environmental situations forward.--Pacific Affairs In compelling prose, authors Tim Forsyth and Andrew Walker--- who have deep knowledge of the conditions of the population and long experience with the challenging problems of Thailand's environmental issues--- bring to the reader's attention new scholarship that revises previously held opinions on the subject of deforestation.--Chicago Botanic Garden This is a book whose messages will resonate as commonsensical with many readers and yet will simultaneously provoke unease. . . the authors cross a number of boundaries, and they slay not a few sacred cows along the way. The book deserves to be read by all with an interest in the societal and epistemological bases of environmentalism, and all with an interest in environmental issues in Thailand. It also gives very specific and extended treatment to issues that continue to lie at the heart of environmental de