It's the hot season. As the rivers dry out and the land cracks, the protests gather.

A month ago, several thousand gathered outside Chiang Mai city hall. They are still there. Some want land. Some want citizenship. Some want to make their own booze. Two weeks ago, the Assembly of the Poor returned to the pavement outside Government House. They want some progress on the promises which the Thaksin government made before they raised their protest over a year ago.

The community forest bill was gutted at the last moment by a Senate amendment. Half a million forest-dwellers still face eviction. The people who have researched, debated, drafted and redrafted this bill over a decade are angry.

By Songkran, Thaksin has promised to take a decision on the two power plants in Prachuab Khirikhan, and on the Thai-Malaysian pipeline. On all three sites, the local villagers who want to protect the environment and their own way of life have vowed to resist if the projects get the go-ahead.

The new forestry chief announced he supports dams like Kaeng Sua Ten on the Yom river, because it will prevent downstream flooding. The project has been a focus of controversy for over a decade. Local residents want to protect their homes and a rare teak forest. Dam advocates claim the forest no longer exists. Study after study has shown the project makes no economic sense except for a coalition of land speculators, construction contractors, and commission-seekers.

Other disputes are the lingering legacies of disastrous policy decisions in the past. Government will soon have to decide whether to open or close the gates on the Pak Mun dam when the one-year experimental opening expires. The controversy over the Klong Dan waste treatment plant is coming to a head. The contractor wants compensation for delay. An independent review shows the ADB broke its own rules at least six different ways to support the project. Local groups are ready to show how the project was distorted, at great human and environmental cost, to generate an enormous profit for land speculators.

On top of all this, we may be visited by El Nino. Last time he visited, El Nino fanned forest fires and stirred up water conflicts. In the north, lowlanders blamed hill peoples for forest fires and low water levels in the rivers. A minister urged "Thai" lowlanders to take precedence over "foreign" hill people. In the central plain and the northeast, neighbouring villages battled over the meagre water supply in the rivers and irrigation canals.

Each of these issues is separate and local. But they are all tied together by a common theme of access to natural resources of land, trees, and water. Behind some of the disputes is a conflict between neighbouring groups. Behind most is a contest between the government which wants these resources to develop the city, big business, and the modern economy, and local villagers for whom access to natural resources is the very basis of their way of life.

Speaking to the demonstration in Chiang Mai, the historian-activist Nithi Eoseewong put this in a simple historical perspective. For decades, the tiny urban middle class monopolised the use of the national budget for education, urban infrastructure, and urban growth which made themselves rich and comfortable. The rural majority did not protest because it still had access to natural resources. But over the last fifteen years, government and industry has grabbed more and more land, forests, and water for the benefit of the same tiny urban minority. This provoke rural groups to protest because these natural resources are the basis of their livelihood and way of life.

In response to these protests, government now offers to share some of the national budget with the villagers. That is the essence of the Thaksin government's schemes of health care, village funds, debt relief, and micro-credit. For the villagers, Nithi pointed out, a share of the budget is undoubtedly welcome. "But what they need much more is access to natural resources. The Thaksin government's approach won't solve the people's problems in the long term. Increasing poverty does not stem from a lack of government budget."

In 1999-2000, Thaksin courted local groups and NGO activists. Some were attracted because he adopted the language of bottom-up development and community focus. Others gave him the benefit of the doubt since anything seemed better than the fierce urban bias and wooden bureaucratic mentality of the Democrats.

Over the past year most of these local groups and activists have realised their mistake. Thaksin's rural policies are good, but superficial. They don't address key issues like land and tax. He doesn’t want to help farmers, but turn them into businessmen. Only a few will benefit. The enclosure and destruction of natural resources goes on unabated.

Activist groups have not been idle during Thaksin's honeymoon. They have used the time to recharge their batteries, engage in self-criticism, fine-tune organisation, expand networks, and discuss strategy. They are rested and ready. The demands made by the Chiang Mai protest are highly sophisticated.

There are two ways Thaksin can handle this hot, hot season. First, he could follow the trend of recent months in which his government has been increasingly captured by the old forces in Thai politics. That means he will back the coalitions of construction contractors, land speculators and commission-seekers who are the vanguard of the urban assault on natural resources and local communities. Protesters will be beaten and third hands blamed.

Second, he could remember his own commitment to fight poverty. He could recall his own admission that he might not get everything right first time, and revise his belief that villagers can simply be turned into businessmen like himself. He could remember his own ambition to be a new type of national leader rather than the head of a business gang.