Phrakhru Pitak added a new twist to this ceremony. Several nurseries around the provincial capital and some wealthy patrons offered 12,000 seedlings to the monks.
Along with the donation of seedlings, there were several other innovations.
The villagers paraded their offerings in three groups, representing the three subdistricts in which the ten participating villages belonged.
While they carried model trees with simple offerings of money and necessities, they did not dance, drink, or play the traditional music that usually accompanies a phaa paa parade (Darlington 1990: 132-37).
Rather, each of the three groups performed skits they had prepared which presented their ideas of conserving the forest.
Two were straightforward; for example, one group pantomimed planting seedlings.
The most dramatic of the three included political commentary.
The villagers acted out an incident of the forest being cut down, passing the blame from the minority hill people, to the northern Thai
villagers, until it finally settled on 'the government for not protecting the forest.
The political debate concerning forest conservation and the economic interests involved in its destruction underlies all conservation activities. 6 It is unusual, however, for these issues to be brought so openly to the surface, especially during a Buddhist ritual.
All three skits emphasized the urgent need for the villagers to conserve the forest.