Between 1970 and 1980 villages adjacent to the Dong Mun Uplands of Northeastern Thailand were transformed from subsistence
communities, based on wet rice production, to a cash economy linked to global markets and the national and international political
order. Although formally designated reserves had been created on old growth forests, the new economic opportunities encouraged
conversion of forests to agriculture. Attracted by a false belief that land was being made available for settlement, immigrants flooded
in and cleared forests to plant dryland cash crops using the newly expanded and improved road network to export their products.
Social forestry programs may have assisted community development and encouraged agricultural diversification but were insuffi-
cient to prevent the contraction of forests, which now remain only as degraded remnants on the steepest slopes and least accessible
sites.
To some extent the social, political and economic forces have stabilized in Dong Mun and evidence of a new relationship between
humans and their forest land is appearing. The Royal Forest Service is largely reconciled to the loss of domain over most of forest
reserve and is pursuing a modified management policy that shows some evidence of a shift from an industrial to a post-industrial
mode.
In recent years, Buddhist monks in forest temples found through the uplands have achieved some effective forest conservation
and restoration. Their efforts stem from the Buddhist precepts of the sanctity of all life and a view that forests are places for contemplation
and spiritual renewal. Monks have been able to protect and restore some forest land because their views and wishes are
far more likely to be honored than laws and demands of government officials. This reflects a broader phenomenon in Thailand
where considerable impetus for a contemporary environmental movement has come from religious sources in contrast to the west
where it is largely a secular in origin.
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