The Governments Decentralization of Authority and Rights to the Community to Manage their Own Natural Resources and Environment : A Case Study of Thalang Municipalities in Phuket Province
Abstract:
The study employed a qualitative method. The purposes of this research were to investigate the results of the governments decentralization of authority and rights to the community to manage their own natural resources and environment. An in-depth interview was used as the major instrument for collecting the data. The researcher interviewed three groups of involved people, community leaders and representatives of the private sectors in Thalang District. The results were as follows: 1. The government has decentralized the authority and missions from the four ministries in Bangkok to each community to manage its own natural resources and environment. 2. Regarding the perception about the decentralization, it was found that the Municipalities were aware of the decentralization of power and rights to manage their natural resources and environment from the governments official announcement and government meetings, while the community perceived some information from the local meetings, bulletin boards, and community radios.
3. In terms of the communitys role in managing the natural resources and environment, it was revealed that the community has worked together with the Thalang Municipalities in planning, implementing, and following-up the plans. The plans included protecting, rehabilitating, conserving, developing and making use of the communitys natural resources and environment. 4. The outputs from the decentralization were that the community could protect, restore, conserve, develop and make use of the communitys natural resources and environment. The impact from the decentralization was that the community has realized that the local people have to be more accountable for their own resources and environment. 5. The communitys participation in managing their resources could make the local people work together in planning and organizing various activities, as well as giving information, discussing and making decision. Besides this, the community provided information and knowledge about managing the resources and environment to the local people. 6. The problems occurred from the decentralization included overlapping work, insufficient number of personnel, and lack of knowledge and budget.