Forest Guardians, Forest Destroyers: The Politics of Environmental Knowledge in Northern Thailand

8. Biodiversity

8 Biodiversity Biodiversity plays an important and growing role in the development and maintenance of Thailand’s selective narrative of environmental crisis. Much information about biodiversity in Thailand emphasizes the numbers and distinctiveness of species to be conserved. According to the ngo Conservation International (2004), Thailand contains part of the Indo-Burma biodiversity “hotspot” in which there are said to be over 13,000 plant species and 2,185 terrestrial vertebrate species. One leading national environmental agency claims that plants found in Thailand alone account for an estimated 8 percent of the world’s plant species. And Thailand’s faunal diversity is said to be equally impressive: “at least 292 species of mammal . . . at least 938 avifauna species, 318 reptile species . . . 122 amphibian species [and] 606 freshwater fish species” (Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning 2004). An educational cd-rom on biodiversity in Thailand claims that the country has some 12 percent of the world’s fish species, 11 percent of the birds, 10 percent of the turtles, and 7 percent of the mammals. And the list of Thailand’s biodiversity is likely to increase as scientific research progresses . For example, the cd-rom advises that an estimated 2,000 species of plankton are still waiting to be discovered (Learn Online 2002). There is considerable anxiety that this internationally significant biodiversity is under threat, and this concern has a profound influence on the generation and use of environmental knowledge. The Buddhist philosopher and social critic Sulak (2004) taps into a popular antimodernist sentiment with his emotive claim that Thailand’s obsession with the free market has led to environmental destruction whereby “biologi201 cal diversity and natural beauty are . . . lost under the onslaught of logging , hydro-dams and crop monoculture smothered in pesticides.” The journalist Fahn (2003:112) laments the loss of Thailand’s forests, “vast, living warehouses of biodiversity.” Echoing widespread concern about the loss of this ecological richness, he writes that “some 40 percent of the kingdom’s indigenous wildlife species are considered threatened, and at least half a dozen major animals have become extinct.” Some of the victims of Thailand’s “rapid and widespread extirpation of wildlife” are listed in Dearden’s alarming account (1999:5): Schomburgk’s deer is now extinct; the kouprey is probably extinct; and the brow-antlered deer, hog deer, Javan rhinoceros, Sumatran rhinoceros, long-billed vulture, estuarine crocodile, and false gharial are only found in captivity. According to Dearden (ibid.), “of the 282 species of mammals about 40 are classified as rare and endangered, and 190 of 916 bird species and 37 of 405 species of reptiles and amphibians are threatened with extinction.” These kinds of statements influence environmental policy and shape regulatory responses. The narrative of biodiversity crisis has played a key role in justifying ongoing state involvement in the management of natural resources. In particular, as the Royal Forest Department has moved from a forest exploitation agency to a forest protection agency, biodiversity protection has taken on considerable prominence, second only to the goal of protecting forest to secure lowland water supplies. The central regulatory approach under this strategy has been the establishment of protected areas. These now cover a significant percentage of the nation’s total landmass, and the protected area system has been assessed as “one of the best in South East Asia” for the conservation of mammalian, bird, and plant species (icem 2003:63). According to the Wildlife Conservation Division of the Royal Forest Department (2004f), 53 wildlife sanctuaries were established by 2004 (with 6 more in process), plus 55 nonhunting areas and 19 wildlife conservation stations. The role of the environmental narrative in reinforcing state power is clearly demonstrated in the division ’s own statement that it had achieved its objectives of “resettl[ing] villages out of wildlife sanctuaries” (2004f) and, in the very next point, that it had accomplished “reintroduction and rehabilitation of some wildlife species such as pheasants and hoofed mammals.” In other words, peasants out, pheasants in. These regulatory interventions take place in a context of considerable uncertainty, given that scientific assessment of biodiversity is often very difficult. At the most general level, there is considerable uncertainty about 202 Biodiversity the overall number of species and about which type of land use change may reduce, or enhance, diversity. In northern Thailand—despite considerable research on the abundance of biodiversity or...