Adaptation and negotiation of ethnic communities towards state policy on natural resource management : case studies of Ban Klang Community and Ban Mae Hang Community, Lampang province
Abstract:
This research is a qualitative study. The objective of the study is to study community adaptation, ethnicity, negotiation, and effects that arise from the adaptation and negotiation of ethnic communities towards natural resources management policies of the government in Ban Klang and Ban Mae Hang communities, Lampang province. The researcher population include 20 information providers from Ban Klang community, Mae Moh district, and 20 information providers from Ban Mae Hang community, Ngao district, totally 40 people. Informant also include agencies and people involved with Ban Klang community, Mae Moh District and Ban Mae Hang community, Ngao District, Lampang province, and other general informants who can provide information about adaptation and negotiation of Ban Klang and Ban Mae Hang communities to natural resources management policy of the government. The study, Adaptation of Baan Klang community and Baan Mae Hang community are both similar and different. The similar adaptations include reducing the number of years of shifting cultivation and reducing or eliminating the area of plots dedicated for shifting cultivation. But the difference is that Baan Klang community continues to practice shifting cultivation even though they must adjust the pattern and timing, while Baan Mae Hang community turns to growing mixed crops and using tourism as a source of additional income. But the two communities cannot go to collect forest products as usual and unable to live the same life again. These have led to negotiation of the two communities in the forms of movement, creating community information, managing community resource, developing communitys sample/model, and promoting their identity. These negotiations are for demanding rights of the communities and to show their ability to stand up and fight for maintaining identity and culture of the community which they strive to prove that people can live in harmony with the forest. The results after community adjustment and negotiation are that the state has managed resources through legal or policy mechanisms that related to increasing the role of the state in resource management. As a result, the communities role, and power to access natural resources have decreased, causing the community to have instability in their place of residence and arable land including lack of involvement in managing natural resources with the state. Therefore, there have been a call for allocating arable land to the community in the form of community title deeds and decentralizing resource management to the community and Local Government Organization (LGO). This causes some areas of Baan Klang and Baan Mae Hang communities to be barred from the area preparing for the announcement of Tham Pha Thai National Park. But majority of the areas are still in the area preparing for the announcement of Tham Pha Thai National Park in the process of right verification.