Project Commencement in Thailand

Local communities and sustainable management of biological diversity

Dr. Prasert Trakansuphakorn, Director of Pgakenyaw Association for Sustainable Development (PASD) together with his staff announced the opening of the Transformative Pathways project in Thailand – “Transformative pathways: local communities leading and scaling up conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, on the 26^th January 2023 at the meeting room of Tambon Administrative Organization (TAO) of Mae Suek, hosted by PASD and Tambon Administrative Organization of Mae Suek.

PASD and Inter-Mountain Peoples Education and Culture in Thailand Association (IMPECT) have commenced the “Transformative Pathways Project: local communities leading and scaling up conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity”, which covers seven official villages, with altogether 25 satellite villages in Mae Suek subdistrict, Mae Chaem district, Chiang Mai province, including, clusters 3, 4, 8, 9, 14, 15, and 17. The Project duration is planned for 6 years with financial support from the Government of Germany through International Climate Initiative (IKI).

The meeting was intended to inform all the involved stake-holders about the project and its action plan and at the same time to receive feedback, ideas, and recommendations from all the participants; and with the expectation to create the sense of effective and efficient co-management in the project. In addition, the meeting was also designed to brainstorm about the appropriate form of joint-management through participatory approach by allied organizations as well as other stake-holders.

Participants in this meeting included representatives from target communities, The Director of the Local Administrative Office, Department of National Administration (as keynote speaker through online), Ministry of Interior, Mae Chaem District Senior Bailiff, Tambol Administration Office (TAO), local Forest Ranger, Royal Forest Department, Thai Rak Thai Foundation Thailand (NGO), and PASD staff, other participants joined online meeting.

Participants were informed about the background, approach, and work plan of the IKI project and open for questions, reflection and suggestion.  And participants brought the issue of problem solution on land use following the guidelines of the National Land Commission The meeting agrees that it needs to organize the meeting for land use following the guidelines of the National Land Commission with the representative’s government agencies who take care on this issue directly in the near future.

Note: Mae Suek subdistrict is well-known for positive collaboration with multi-stake-holders’ organizations, specially on Geographic Information System (GIS) enhancing data gathering, survey on natural resource usage, land use, forest management, and the state of land use analysis. Thus, Mae Suek subdistrict can be regarded as one of the different models in Thailand in this area.

Read the original article in Thai on the PASD website.