The struggle over the forest area : the struggle and negotiation by the Karen ethnic community for the forest area management right in the context of advocacy for Kaeng Krachan forest complex to be a world heritage
Abstract:
This dissertation focuses on the struggle and negotiation of the Karen ethnic communities for the forest area management rights in the context of advocacy for Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex (KKFC) to be a world heritage. It was conducted in two communities, Bang Kloi/Jai Pan Din and Huay Ka Soo. The research methodology comprises the literature review, the in-depth interview, and the observation. It is then analyzed through the conceptual framework of Space, Resistance, and Human Rights. The research found that the Karen community has undertaken various struggling tactics covering the physical resistances with civil disobedience and returning to their original home community, the revitalization of collective rotational farming of community, the contestation of rights and legitimacy from social spaces with responses to state authoritys charges and allegations, the rules and regulations designed on natural resources management with sustainability on basis of customary practices of ethnic groups, struggling through legal spaces with reclaiming of the constitutional community rights, the Cabinet Resolution on the date of 3rd August 2010, and the application of national park laws including conditions designed and made to and for a world heritage to be tools for negotiation with the government to make dispute and rights resolution on land, and resources management of the Karen ethnic community in KKFC and with supports provided from other external networks. Anyhow, those negotiations and contestations are not helping to make and drive solutions with dispute resolution on land and resources management of the Karen ethnic community, since one of the core contentious elements is the ownership and sovereignty over resources, among the state, individual, and community, is considered to be one of the institutional and cultural challenges that would take more time to propel.