Part III. Land and the National Environment: Forests

A contribution to a special journal issue on law & society in southeast Asia [see related abstracts in SA 43:]. In Exit, Voice and the Depletion of Open Access Resources: The Political Bases of Property Rights in Thailand, Scott R. Christensen & Akin Rabibhadana contend that the depletion of the open land frontier in Thailand has failed to lead to the development of a strong central state capable of enforcing property rights, although it has led to demands for land reform. Institutional factors inhibiting the state from enforcing property rights combined with the absence of a landed aristocracy have maintained the discrepancy between legal rules & customary practices that prevailed when an open land frontier allowed people to avoid conflict by relocating. It is concluded that the depletion of surplus forest reserves in Thailand has led to increasing conflicts over land resources. In The Monk, the Hmong, the Forest, the Cabbage, Fire and Water: Incongruities in Northern Thailand Opium Replacement, Ronald D. Renard (Payap U, Thailand) explores the conflict between the PA Kluai & the Hmong, which developed as a consequence of the latter's replacement of opium production with cabbage production -- which resulted in deforestation & pollution of Pa Kluai lands. In Comments and Discussion, Christensen, Rabibhadana, Renard, Anan Ganjanapan, Michael O. Mastura, Franz von Benda-Beckmann, Robert Kidder, Sulaiman Abdullah, Suvit Rungvisai, David Engel, Joel Handler, Mehrun Siraj, Terrence George, Satjipto Rahardjo & Barbara Yngvesson discuss cultural differences between the East & the West, focusing on the former's concern for social duty & the latter's stress on individual rights. Adapted from the source document.