The gates of the Pak Mool dam will be closed on November 1st. The arrangement to close the gates for electricity generation for eight months of the year, and open to allow fish to migrate for the other four, appears to be a compromise. Indeed the university rector who suggested this formula called it a win-win arrangement. The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) get some electricity. The fishing communities get a chance to fish.

In fact, both wins are for EGAT.

The gates will be open from July through October when the river is in full flood from the rains. EGAT has to open the gates fully or partially in this period anyway, otherwise the river floods the town of Ubon upstream.

Meanwhile for the fishing communities, this phasing is meaningless. Their small boats and fragile equipment cannot be used when the river is in flood. They fish around the rapids and pools when the river is calmer. For them, this decision is lose-lose. As one of the fishermen said when the decision was announced, “we are dead”.

What also died was an opportunity to think new and act new. Over the last decade or so, the controversy over Pak Mool has become steadily more confrontational. The protesters storm Government House. The vigilantes burn the protesters’ camp to the ground. Thaksin’s government brought a new set of people to address the issue. The decision to open the gates for a year, and carry out a swathe of research, put a lot of new data on the table. Here was a chance for new people to take a fresh look on the basis of new information. Here was a chance to escape the weight of the past. Yet the decision was taken in the oldest-fashioned way possible. No public debate. No explanation of the rationale. And not even waiting for the research to be completed.

Chayyan Rachakul, who was part of the Ubon University’s research team, noted that the decision was never going to be based on research anyway. The controversy is about different mindsets. The pro-EGAT side is no longer trying to defend the original plan to build the dam. It is simply arguing that we have spent 6.6 billion baht on the thing, so shouldn’t we use it? The water which drives the turbines is a free gift from nature. It’s EGAT’s duty to the Thai people to get a return on the investment of their taxes. There is no doubt this is a very powerful argument. The anti-dam mindset argues that the damage to the river has a much higher cost in the long-term.

But the furtive, non-transparent, closed-mind way the decision was taken suggests there is another dimension to this affair. The government does not want to appear to give way to protests by ordinary people. The issue is not just the dam, but the nature of power.

If this one dam were opened, it would set a precedent. What about others? In the US, 63 dams will be destroyed this year alone. Could Pak Mun start a domino of dams? Even more difficult is the simple business of giving way, admitting a mistake, confessing that all the science, technology and expertise that went into planning this dam was somehow flawed. This is especially difficult when the key opponents are a group of raggle-taggle fishermen who are not supposed to know anything much at all.

That is why the vijai tai ban, the “Villagers’ Research” carried out by the fishing communities themselves is such a landmark event. In recent years, the idea of “local knowledge” or “local wisdom” has become a mantra among social activists. This research puts the idea into practice. The fishing communities carried out the research with some NGO help. The research is important because it challenges the monopoly over knowledge by those who sit in offices and take decisions. It’s important, too, because the result is so good. It details the living ecology of the Mool river in great detail. It lists the fish and their habits, the plants and their uses, and the many types of fishing equipment. It portrays the society through sociological analysis, and by capsule biographies. It has a depth of knowledge that comes from living experience over many generations. It is very non-air-conditioned.

Even without the political background, it is an extraordinary document. It will appear in book form this week (in Thai). It comes with legitimating forewords by two of Thailand’s leading social scientists (Nithi Eoseewong and M.R. Akin Rabibhadana). That’s nice. But it doesn’t really need them. It stands on its own. It gives a graphic, living picture of what is being lost—in return for 130-odd megawatts of power, and the self-regard of the decision-makers.

It is impressive, too, because (unlike the decision on the dam’s future) it is transparent. The bias of the research is right up there on the cover: this is the villagers’ research. On the first page, Pho Dam Chataphan, one of the research team leaders, makes it plain that they did the research in an effort to protect the river and their livelihoods which depend on it.

As Chainarong Setthachua, the NGO worker who facilitated the research, noted, some academics have become little more then “hired guns”, ready to write a feasibility study, impact assessment, or consultancy report to suit the project-owner who is paying the bill. Such reports pretend to be the unbiassed product of science. In such a murky world, this report is a mischievous candle.

Already the Pak Mool vijai tai ban team has been asked to advise other local communities whose livelihood is threatened by the authorities’ claim to the monopoly of knowledge. The whole long Pak Mool saga has been one of the saddest tales of the past decade. But it has also been one of the most inspiring and creative forces in civil society.