Geography and the Environment in Southeast Asia: Proceedings of the Geology Jubilee Symposium, The University of Hong Kong, 21-25 June 1976

14. Upland Development and Prospects for the Rural Poor: Experience in Northern Thailand

XIV UPLAND DEVELOPMENT AND PROSPECTS FOR THE RURAL POOR: EXPERIENCE IN NORTHERN THAILAND E.C. Chapman Air pollution, the dumping of industrial waste and inadequate urban housing for low胡come families are the normal accompaniments of urban and industrial deve1cpment in Southeast Asia. It is comforting to argue that various kinds of environmental damage are part of the costs of economic development, to be endured for a few years, and that once governments can pay for environmental improvements, or give them a higher priority in government expenditure, then the technical answers will be readily available from existing knowledge in the Western world. Unfortunately perhaps, not a11 environmental problems in Southeast Asia are linked so positively with economic development. In many rural areas the 侃tent of environmental deterioration seems to exhibit an inverse relationship with the rate of economic growth: that is, economic development can be seen to have led to a marked improvement in the economic and social environment of villagers, with little harm to their physical environment, while in areas where economic development has been slow the marks of environmental deterioration are to be seen in serious soil erosion, or in the abandonment of land to scrub-forest or man-induced grassland. In the Philippines alone, cogonales (anthropogenic grasslands dominated by Imperata cylindrlca) are reported to cover up to 40 per cent of the land surfaω(Soerjani， cited by Gibson, 1976, 16; Fryer, 1970,44). Indonesia has about 180,000 km 2 of Imperata grassland (Gibson, 1976, 16). Thetotal for a11 Southeast Asia is probably at least 5001∞o km 2 , and is still increasing. This is environmental damage on a massive scale. Its pro到mate cause is excessive swidden cultivation, but the underlying cause is the failure of economic development to keep pace with population growth. Ncrthern ThaUand has extensive areas of Imperata grassland in the higher hill country, above about 1000 m, particularly west of the Ping va11ey (Figures 14. 1 and 14. 2). In the proximate 認nse， its cause is 也e Hmong ,.‘ 8U"..... -一…… 一一 }自 _:=..... '" ..，.卒于品..-+-' E.C. CIIAPMAN F也urc /4. J: Topography, admfnistrative di:rtrlcl$ and towns 的 northern Thaliand (月徊。 or Meo) swidden syslem centred upon opium production, but morc fundamentally the ma.in explan訕。n fOf its elÒstence is found in the spatia1 concentration of econom.ic devclopment in the vall吋s over the put twenty 10 thirty yean. The purp冊。 r this paper is 10 illusttate I spatial 甜 ociltion between the development process and the proctu ofenvironlT、entaI deterlora tion when, as in 位海 fCgJO個al examplt, the two are invage and minor concentrations of industria1 waste, for ex紅nple ， the purple-coloured effluent from the whisky distil1ery near Chiang Mai, are not so efficlent1y spread downstream as they were in earlier years. So far at least, these are sma11costs for the benefits of recent agricultura1 development. ENVIRONMENTAL DETERIORATJON IN THE UPLANDS Agricultura1 development in northern Thalland has so far been concentrated in those areas where resources, notably water supplies, soils and gentle slopes, made irrigation attractive. For those lowland villages without access to irrigation, dry-season cropping has rwt been possible. Here , increasing population pressure on the lirnited land avaùable for wet-season cultivation has caused many villagers to look for employment as wage labourers, or to look upslope for land. Consequenlly, over the past 10 to 15 years Thai villagers from the lowlands have increasingly been competitors wlth hill people for swidden land in the lower hï;l country, mainly below 1000 m. (Figure 14.1). Swidden systems of the various ethnic gloups in the northern uplands vary greatly in their cropping systems, and greatly a1so in the extent to which they have had a destructive effect on the physica1 environment. All contribute to the smoke layer which covers the region from mid-January until the rains in April or May. All the swidden systems a1so contribute to soil UPLAND DEVELOPMENT. 213 erosion by removing grasses and shrubs before the heavy storms at the beginning of the rainy season, but the costs of ‘slash and burn' in erosion, in the destruction of mature forest and in the establishment of Imperata-dominant grassland, vary enormously from one area to another. 訂閱 m吋ority of swidden farmers in the hills and mountains of northern Thailand shift their fields from year to year within a fixed village territory, rarely growing more than two crops successively in a field before abandoning it to re-growth...