Lazy review of Forest Guardians, Forest Destroyers (using selected evidence from the book to back up my traditional rants)
One of the problems of the blogosphere is that one can select and publish only the information that agrees with our world view, the medium removes the burden of proof, I could put up the most preposterous of opinions, presenting them as facts and, though they may be based on the scantest of evidence, you Dear Reader, would have no recourse save for an acerbic comment which I could then choose whether or not to send public.
So, being prone to this sort of behaviour myself, it is a great relief when some clever and rigorous folks - otherwise known as scientists - go to the trouble of producing a work that appears to back up the more spurious of the rants I subject you to.
The chapter on water usage had me almost punching the air with joy, apart from the fact it was lucid, well written and researched, it could have been lifted from one of my pieces (though as the book was finished in 2003 or so and I have only just read it now we must have just come to the same conclusion). That the yearly claims of drought have more to do with an increasing population and an increased expectation of year round cropping (using irrigation during the dry season) throughout the area (the book makes distinction between upland farmers who normally take the blame and lowland farmers who are the traditional blamers - not being tuned into the narratives I have never made that distinction) without a corresponding increase in water collection infrastructure.
The rainfall graphs taken from the Royal Irrigation Department website manage to show that rainfall levels, though definitely fluctuating over the last 40 years, are (so far) fluctuating within natural, historical levels in much the same way as my favourite graph of flood and flow from the Mekong River Commission has (thus far) managed to show that even our great flood events and drought claims are well within the natural fluctuations of recent history and have more to do with an increased expectation to be able to farm/trade year round - something never dreamt of in the past.
But enough of the agreements and the 'I told you so's' what did I learn? Well, in truth I learned a lot about the historical politics that have informed traditional Government intervention in this landscape - I had never assumed the monocrop large teak plantations were anything more than long term cash cropping though they were, apparently, an attempt to preserve rainfall levels under the belief that trees create rain; learned a great deal of the issues between lowland and upland farmers and became enlightened as to the land designations and, in particular, the intricacies of running elephants on certain types of land, if you like, the official definition of conservation.
I was also quite disturbed to learn that perhaps the most accurate method of estimating historical erosion patterns is to calculate the relative levels of cesium-137 left over from the atomic bomb testing age (peaking in 1963) in the soil. This is radioactive stuff dropped from the atmosphere uniformly across the world in those days.
The only chapter on which I would take issue, and in relying on observational and anecdotal evidence to do so I become that which I seek to criticise, is the chapter on biodiversity. In doing so I make no distinction between upland and lowland farmers and between the methods traditionally used by different peoples, I buy into the arguments that certain sorts of swidden agriculture - both pioneer and otherwise (though, being a fan of big trees and of natural environments, I don't really like the idea of pioneer swidden - i.e. moving a village and cutting down virgin forest in order grow crops rather than having rotating areas of secondary forest left fallow for a certain number of years around a fixed village - though what is done is done and, what the book doesn't mention is that most of the big trees were presumably (up until Government intervention put a stop to it in 1989) taken by large logging companies and our favourite mammals which, I presume, would have produced a far greater effect on the virgin forest than any amount of either type of swidden).
This chapter seeks, I feel, to suggest that large populations and commercial, year round, farming - be it of fruit, rubber or other trees, may not harm the biodiversity of the region - having walked in areas ranging from protected National Park (mainly areas of tertiary growth) where hunting and grazing are controlled, through secondary growth forest away from villages, swidden farming areas and into pesticide ridden fruit farms and 'intensive' agricultural areas I can vouch, observationally, that the diversity of mammal life (with wild mammals being virtually without trace outside specifically (and actually) protected areas) and of bird life (from calls and observation) decreases as you walk through - with the large, fruit and rubber forests, being void of any faunal life at all.
For floral life you would have to ask a horticulturalist, but the (seemingly universal) habit of using pesticide to clear weeds around any plantation or area that needs cleaning cannot be good for plant diversity - in fairness the book only specifically challenges the oft made claim that pesticide use pollutes downstream waterways and, for this, I have to bow to higher knowledge - but it ain't that good for the plants it falls on, whether those plants be in the mountains or on the plains.
In summation, this is not a book you would necessarily read unless you were specifically interested in the subject, either here or elsewhere in S.E. Asia - it may hold many lessons for those working in countries where the economic miracle of Thailand has not yet happened and, at times, it does read more of a direct questioning of Government policy and a defence of the upland 'hill tribe' farmers and farming techniques than a truly balanced scientific laying out of all research in the field.
That said, the historical tendency to blame all of the agricultural and environmental ills on specific groups of upland farmers, whilst praising other groups and completely ignoring the effects of others still - when all are operating, increasingly, in the same area must be very frustrating for those who take all the blame and those who have researched to prove that this 100% share is unwarranted.
As with so much else in life, for those of you who prefer your reading slightly less scientifically rigorous the situation can be summed up as "it's not as simple as it looks and don't believe everything you read in the papers (or the blogosphere)".
Bit like elephants really.
________________
Forest Guardians, Forest Destroyers (the politics of environmental knowledge in Northern Thailand)
by Tim Forsyth and Andrew Walker is available from all good local bookstores as well as international websites.
So, being prone to this sort of behaviour myself, it is a great relief when some clever and rigorous folks - otherwise known as scientists - go to the trouble of producing a work that appears to back up the more spurious of the rants I subject you to.
The chapter on water usage had me almost punching the air with joy, apart from the fact it was lucid, well written and researched, it could have been lifted from one of my pieces (though as the book was finished in 2003 or so and I have only just read it now we must have just come to the same conclusion). That the yearly claims of drought have more to do with an increasing population and an increased expectation of year round cropping (using irrigation during the dry season) throughout the area (the book makes distinction between upland farmers who normally take the blame and lowland farmers who are the traditional blamers - not being tuned into the narratives I have never made that distinction) without a corresponding increase in water collection infrastructure.
The rainfall graphs taken from the Royal Irrigation Department website manage to show that rainfall levels, though definitely fluctuating over the last 40 years, are (so far) fluctuating within natural, historical levels in much the same way as my favourite graph of flood and flow from the Mekong River Commission has (thus far) managed to show that even our great flood events and drought claims are well within the natural fluctuations of recent history and have more to do with an increased expectation to be able to farm/trade year round - something never dreamt of in the past.
But enough of the agreements and the 'I told you so's' what did I learn? Well, in truth I learned a lot about the historical politics that have informed traditional Government intervention in this landscape - I had never assumed the monocrop large teak plantations were anything more than long term cash cropping though they were, apparently, an attempt to preserve rainfall levels under the belief that trees create rain; learned a great deal of the issues between lowland and upland farmers and became enlightened as to the land designations and, in particular, the intricacies of running elephants on certain types of land, if you like, the official definition of conservation.
I was also quite disturbed to learn that perhaps the most accurate method of estimating historical erosion patterns is to calculate the relative levels of cesium-137 left over from the atomic bomb testing age (peaking in 1963) in the soil. This is radioactive stuff dropped from the atmosphere uniformly across the world in those days.
The only chapter on which I would take issue, and in relying on observational and anecdotal evidence to do so I become that which I seek to criticise, is the chapter on biodiversity. In doing so I make no distinction between upland and lowland farmers and between the methods traditionally used by different peoples, I buy into the arguments that certain sorts of swidden agriculture - both pioneer and otherwise (though, being a fan of big trees and of natural environments, I don't really like the idea of pioneer swidden - i.e. moving a village and cutting down virgin forest in order grow crops rather than having rotating areas of secondary forest left fallow for a certain number of years around a fixed village - though what is done is done and, what the book doesn't mention is that most of the big trees were presumably (up until Government intervention put a stop to it in 1989) taken by large logging companies and our favourite mammals which, I presume, would have produced a far greater effect on the virgin forest than any amount of either type of swidden).
This chapter seeks, I feel, to suggest that large populations and commercial, year round, farming - be it of fruit, rubber or other trees, may not harm the biodiversity of the region - having walked in areas ranging from protected National Park (mainly areas of tertiary growth) where hunting and grazing are controlled, through secondary growth forest away from villages, swidden farming areas and into pesticide ridden fruit farms and 'intensive' agricultural areas I can vouch, observationally, that the diversity of mammal life (with wild mammals being virtually without trace outside specifically (and actually) protected areas) and of bird life (from calls and observation) decreases as you walk through - with the large, fruit and rubber forests, being void of any faunal life at all.
For floral life you would have to ask a horticulturalist, but the (seemingly universal) habit of using pesticide to clear weeds around any plantation or area that needs cleaning cannot be good for plant diversity - in fairness the book only specifically challenges the oft made claim that pesticide use pollutes downstream waterways and, for this, I have to bow to higher knowledge - but it ain't that good for the plants it falls on, whether those plants be in the mountains or on the plains.
In summation, this is not a book you would necessarily read unless you were specifically interested in the subject, either here or elsewhere in S.E. Asia - it may hold many lessons for those working in countries where the economic miracle of Thailand has not yet happened and, at times, it does read more of a direct questioning of Government policy and a defence of the upland 'hill tribe' farmers and farming techniques than a truly balanced scientific laying out of all research in the field.
That said, the historical tendency to blame all of the agricultural and environmental ills on specific groups of upland farmers, whilst praising other groups and completely ignoring the effects of others still - when all are operating, increasingly, in the same area must be very frustrating for those who take all the blame and those who have researched to prove that this 100% share is unwarranted.
As with so much else in life, for those of you who prefer your reading slightly less scientifically rigorous the situation can be summed up as "it's not as simple as it looks and don't believe everything you read in the papers (or the blogosphere)".
Bit like elephants really.
________________
Forest Guardians, Forest Destroyers (the politics of environmental knowledge in Northern Thailand)
by Tim Forsyth and Andrew Walker is available from all good local bookstores as well as international websites.
Posted by John Roberts at Sun, 25 Oct 2009 07:13:00 GMT 
Categories: Book Review, Golden Triangle Conservation
Categories: Book Review, Golden Triangle Conservation
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