The purpose of the study was to examine the gender difference in forest practices and environmental awareness in northwestern Thailand. Gender is an important basis from which to approach an issue and this study assumed that differences would be reflected by the responses from men and women. Rather than study the issues from one gender’s view and extrapolating these to arrive at conclusions, both men and women were involved and a complete perception was obtained. Differences between the practices and perception of men and women were not as great as anticipated. Men and women made similar use of
the forest and expressed a similar level of environmental awareness relative to the context of the areas defined in the study. The experience and findings of this study hopefully will provide some base from which similar studies can be explored.