Forest Guardians, Forest Destroyers: The Politics of Environmental Knowledge in Northern Thailand Paperback – January 16, 2008

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I have just started reading about the environment in Thailand and I think this book is a good place to start. Even though the focus is Northern Thailand, it provides a framework for analyzing and thinking about environmental narratives across the country, in a general sense. It is hopeful book, encouraging the use of local narratives to create a more dynamic environmental discourse that has been quite top down oriented fora long time. Walker and Forsyth are not bogged down by focusing on the 'mythical' values of local knowledge either. It is well balanced discussion on how to make environmental politics in Thailand more productive.The ability of local livelihoods to sustain and diversify the environment, rather than exclusively destroy it when pursuing commercial crops, is an important counter-narrative put forth in the book. Furthermore, the book does a great job of delegitimizing stereotypical narratives about certain ethnic groups and their assumed 'typical' lifestyles that are destructive of the environment. One section which focuses on more carefully examining water demand rather than forest or tree supply when explaining past (and hopefully future) water resource disputes dispenses with discriminatory narratives that assume 'hill tribes' like the Hmong are not only destroying the forest and poisoning the water but using it all the water as well. It is a nice book.