In 1979, the first of many "Living Museums" was opened at Khao Hin Son, Chachoengsao province, as a research and development centre. "These centres are like natural living organisms," His Majesty once explained. "They actively demonstrate the conclusions of development research and model ways that people can adapt our findings and use them to make a living."
Khao Hin Son’s rugged and rocky terrain served as a model for restoring deforested landscapes and turning them into arable farmland. This was followed in close succession by the Huay Hong Krai Centre in Chiang Mai as a model of catchment are conservation for the North, the Pikul Thong Centre in Narathiwat which offered a case study on the ecology of the swampy, acidic land typical of the southern region, the Phu Phan Centre in the northeastern province of Sakon Nakhon which studies soil salinisation and irrigated reforestation in a drought ridden area, the Kung Kraben Bay Centre in the coastal province of Chantaburi which is devoted to the study and rehabilitation of degraded mangrove forests and coastal waters, and the Huay Sai Centre in Phetchaburi which studied the rehabilitation of devastated forests and offered strategies to help villagers benefit from forest resources while becoming forest protectors themselves.
The key principle of these Living Museums was the restoration of ecological balance that would allow the local people to work on the land using folk know-how and become self-supporting. This principle of self-reliance and moderation was constantly brought up in His Majesty’s speeches during the 1970s, and formed the basis of what was to become known as “Sufficiency Economy” and “New Theory” in the 1990s.