Buffaloes have eaten the forest

2 April 2001

How to protect the dwindling forests? An exchange of views at a Chiang Mai seminar last week captured the prevailing confusion.

The Forestry Department (RFD), said an NGO researcher, blames forest fires on villagers living in the forests to build a case for having them removed. But these villagers have a vested interest in preventing and controlling such fires. An empty forest would be less protected, more vulnerable.

A Lisu villager offered local experience in support of this view. His community used to graze animals in the forest. The herders acted as fire-watchers. The animals ate or trampled the groundcover which fuels fires. But recently the RFD banned them from the forest. The result has been more fires. The RFD should examine its own policies.

This was too much for the senior RFD official present. He was used to attending scientific seminars, he said, not social science discussions like this one. He hoped such critical comments would cease.

The Lisu might be right in some cases, added a teacher associated with a foundation whose claims to conserve the forest seem inseparable from prejudice against hill communities. But when the trees are young, buffaloes eat the young leaves and damage the trees.

Many people, interjected a hill woman, know the forest through books and theory. But we who live in the forest know it through our hands, fingers, eyes, ears and feet. I’m a herdswoman. I’ve never seen a buffalo eating young leaves. They eat grass.

Over recent years, there has been a growing battle between two views over managing the forest. On one side is the RFD. It argues there is so little forest left that the forest dwellers must be removed and the area entrusted to its sole care. It has built a case that the headwater areas are critical for producing and storing water. It has encouraged lowland farmers to think of the highland areas as “water towers” for their irrigation. It has enclosed more and more of the headwater areas as national parks.

On the other side are forest dwellers, NGOs, and some academics. They point out that remaining forests have survived in many cases because people living there had the interest and expertise to conserve them. Throwing these people out is unjust and senseless. Moreover, the RFD has always looked on forests as a resource to exploit. In the past it gave out logging concessions. Now it supports tourist developments and big plantations. (The RFD official at this seminar defined conservation as “using cleverly”.) The RFD discredits the knowledge and practices of forest dwellers by portraying them as stupid and predatory. It has tacitly encouraged lowlanders to view hill peoples as “un-Thai”. Would it not be better to harness the hill peoples’ conservation skills and accept their culture as part of the nation’s diversity?

While the two sides bicker, the forests continue to deteriorate and the local conflicts increase. The seminar was one attempt to start a more creative dialogue.

Participants learnt that other countries tackle the same problems in very different ways. In the Philippines, all forest management is based on local communities. Forest villagers help to defend protected areas. Their rights are defined and documented. In South America, local communities have rights to occupy forests and use their resources in traditional ways. On the Nepal/India border, hill communities have been granted dual nationality to defuse problems with peoples who habitually move back and forth across lines drawn on maps.

These varied examples raise a question. Who knows how to manage the forest? The RFD claims its actions are based on science. It has the right to be sole defender because it gathers and uses scientific knowledge. But this science has come from the west, from temperate zones, and from societies with a different history and culture. Is it appropriate for Thailand? Besides, science works by doing experiments to evolve general truths which can then be applied universally. This is different from local wisdom which accumulates specific, practical knowledge. Chang Noi has been on forest treks with both RFD officials and Karen forest-dwellers. The RFD man tells you the classification of forest type and the Latin name of each tree. The Karen stops every ten yards, tells you the age and history of the tree, breaks a leaf so you can smell the scent, explains its use as a food or medicine, and does a bit of preventive cleaning or pruning.

Moreover, science goes through revolutions when new knowledge replaces old. Foreign academics at the seminar presented new research that questions the RFD’s special focus on the headwaters. Forests don’t increase the runoff into rivers because forests themselves use up water. The way forests store and release rainfall differs a lot according to local geology. Deforestation may not be responsible for soil erosion and silting; road building may be more guilty. Shifting cultivation may preserve biodiversity better than the fixed settlements which the RFD promotes. Problems of water shortage result not only from deforestation on the uplands, but from more intensive cultivation with higher water demands in the lowlands.

Dr Chayan Vadhanaputi summed up the seminar. Past practice was based on a series of divisions. Man and forest. Headwater and lowland. Thais and hill people. Science and local wisdom. The RFD and the rest. This mentality of division spawned a politics of conflict. The solution must begin by getting rid of this mentality. Instead of relying only on science, draw on local wisdom and social science as well. Instead of dividing the forest into “production” and “conservation” zones, make conservation prevail throughout. Instead of viewing the headwater as the only problem area, look also at over-intensification of water usage lower down. Instead of relying on the RFD to manage the forests solo, draw on local participation. Instead of relying on old laws, pass a proper community forestry bill which acknowledges the role of local wisdom, culture and custom.

Or else the buffaloes will keep eating the forest.