provide higher incomes for local people through
year-round cultivation of rice and other crops,
while requiring less cultivated area and restoring
forests. It also promotes activities that help reduce
household expenditures, such as the Pig Bank and
the Economic Crop Fund. When the community’s
economic and social conditions improved, environmental
restoration was able to be addressed
through the initiative known as “Cultivating Land,
Cultivating People,” covering 250,000 rai (40,000
ha) in the province. The operational framework
was based on the Royal Initiative of growing three
types of forest for four benefits, namely, His Majesty
the King’s “growing slow- and fast-growing
trees” and “natural reforestation” approaches,
Her Majesty’s “humans coexisting with forest”
campaign, and the Princess Mother’s “Cultivating
Land, Cultivating People” approach, while dayto-day
operations were based on the “integrated
watershed development” of HRH Princess Maha
Chakri Sirindhorn’s initiative.
“The Mae Fah Luang Foundation has introduced
its capacity and experience to development
programmes in Myanmar (Sustainable Alternative
Livelihood Development Project), Indonesia
(Sustainable Alternative Livelihood Development
Project) and Afghanistan (Balkh Livestock and
Community Enterprise Development Project). We
applied the same body of knowledge. In Myanmar,
the project was launched at Yong Kha Village and
Mong Hsat Township in Shan State and at Yenan
Chaung Township in Tachileik.”
Khunying Puangroi said, “Myanmar sent us
a request and the Thai authorities agreed, so
we went there. We could not speak Burmese but
we trained their personnel. We began by addressing
the issues related to illnesses, poverty
and illiteracy. There, we encourage villagers in
the drought-stricken Yenan Chaung Township
to process peanuts, sesame seeds and palm
sugar as roasted peanuts, peanut toffee, peanut
brittle and sesame brittle under the Happy Owl
brand, which is available at the Doi Tung Development
Project, Yangon and Pagan airports
and leading department stores in Myanmar.
We also introduced Goat Banks based on our
lessons with the Pig Fund at Pang Mahan: if you
can see there, you will find whole hills filled with
the Meishan breed. We’ve bought the breeding
stock of goats for them, and we asked them to
return some of the offspring so we can provide
them to other groups. To treat illnesses at Yong
Kha Village, we brought a mobile medical team
to tackle malaria, tuberculosis and scabies.
Since Yenan Chaung has had problems with
poisonous snakes, we set up a serum bank
at the village’s health station and trained the
midwife to treat people bitten by snakes.
“In Afghanistan, we opened the Karakul Sheep
Bank, since shepherding is a common occupation
here. Sheep owners who have registered in our
programme were provided with free breeding
stock, but on condition they return to us any three
newborn female offspring within three years, in
exchange for veterinary services. The offspring
were to be loaned out to other poor families under
the same conditions. We also trained children of
sheep owners to become para-vets: they rode