Asia Times: Southeast Asia


	May 4, 2002	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

UP FRONT
Pisit Charnsnoh: Environmental prize fighter
By Chawadee Nualkhair

BANGKOK - "Working in development is never easy. Working with people is very complicated. Graduating at a high level doesn't mean that you can work easily. [But] I am very optimistic about human development. People work together to solve their problems."

Just two days after returning from the United States, Thai activist Pisit Charnsnoh is sitting on the floor at a home on the outskirts of Bangkok, enduring the latest in a battery of interviews since winning the Goldman Environmental Prize. The world's largest award for grass-roots environmentalists (with a US$125,000 prize), the Goldman is considered the equivalent to an environmental Nobel. This year, Charnsnoh was among eight recipients selected from eight different regions across the globe, winning for his work with poor fishermen in southern Thailand to restore the area's delicate coastal resources.

"Pisit's work exemplifies the degree to which ordinary people can make extraordinary change for the protection of our environment," said Richard N Goldman, who founded the annual environmental prize. "Pisit's results are strong evidence that environmental protection is necessary for economic survival."

Thanks to his work, Thailand's fishermen ultimately won the right to manage their own resources. Today there are nine community-managed mangrove forests in Trang province alone, and 39 others along the coast. The country's endangered mangrove forests - and the fish, mollusks, and mammals that live in them - are being maintained. Two villages saw a 40 percent increase in their local catches in three years as a result of the initiatives, and the sort of factory fishing that used to harm the coast's seagrass beds and coral reefs has been curtailed. Fishermen are avoiding the use of such destructive fishing methods as dynamiting to catch their fish, while savings programs are being instituted to make the purchase of important equipment and fuel easier for the villagers. Most important, says Charnsnoh, the villagers themselves are finding the confidence to assert themselves.

Charnsnoh is happy, and a little tired. Yet he obligingly comes out into the street to direct me to the unmarked gate of his home (Bangkok headquarters for the Yadfon Association, a grass-roots organization started by Charnsnoh and his wife and devoted to assisting the disadvantaged villagers in the south). Forcefully restraining one of his two dogs, Khao (White), from an overenthusiastic show of exuberance, Charnsnoh's Thai sense of hospitality then impels him to run to the kitchen, offering me some mangoes from his front garden as a snack as his grandmother bustles about to give me a glass of water. Gamely forging ahead in English, Charnsnoh reminisces over his first foray in rural development work in Chainat, the "rice bowl of Thailand", as part of a development initative started by Dr Puey Ungpakorn, then rector of Thammasat University.

"An educated person, working with villagers, it was quite new at the time," says Charnsnoh, a graduate of Khon Khaen University. "My 10-year experience in Chainat really convinced me to continue [in rural development work]. I came to learn a lot about the so-called 'local wisdom'. In the relationship between our group and the farmers, I could absorb some of the knowledge from my teachers, the villagers. We also got some real cooperation from local government officers at the time."

His experience in Chainat only emphasized the lessons he'd learned studying the work of eminent social activist Y C James Yen, who had pioneered a concept later known as "rural reconstruction" by developing a people-centered approach in his work with Chinese peasants in the 1920s. "This was the beginning concept of NGOs [non-governmental organizations]. He had interesting approaches, like if you want to understand the local people, you must go to them, learn from them, and work with what the people have rather than bringing in new concepts." Charnsnoh said the ultimate goal in his work was, ultimately, to achieve human development. "I think the concept is still a good one, but it depends on how cleverly you interpret it," he says.

After the Thai military coup October 6, 1976, Puey was forced into a life of exile in London, and his rural development programs stalled. But Charnsnoh only left Chainat more determined to work in rural development than ever before. Setting up Yadfon (a Thai word meaning "drop of rain") in Trang was born from homelier objectives: Charnsnoh wanted to be close to his home town of Surat Thani, 250 kilometers away, and the local government of his wife's home town had been receptive to his organization's goals.

Despite his "home-town advantage" and his long experience in development, Charnsnoh admits it was rough going at first, and not because of religious differences between the Buddhist north and the majority Muslim south. "There were a lot of problems with the fishermen, [but] it didn't matter if they were Muslim or Buddhist. [Instead] the conflict came from two different sides: one, the government sector, and the other, the local people. NGOs then, and still now, are quite new to Thai society. The attitude on development was that as an NGO, we supported sustainable development. The government supports modern, economic development. By nature, there is a difference in objectives."

The problems extended down into the villagers themselves. "They are dominated by the government, and most of the villagers followed the guidance of the government office. Villagers got the wrong impression of NGOs. We were accused of being communists at the beginning. People believed government officers and did not have a clear understanding of NGOs." But Charnsnoh is also quick to stress that many government officials were very supportive, while the less-supportive ones had yet to understand Yadfon's objectives. As with the villagers, Charnsnoh took time to get to know the officials. "We have to spend time getting to know each other. Respect is very important."

With Charnsnoh's success has come validation of Yadfon's work. "In Trang now, problems still exist, but they are very small compared to other places. We have proved our role, our duty." And Charnsnoh remains as humble as ever, comparing himself as a "very small mechanism" in a big machine, the organization. Since starting Yadfon 17 years ago, Charsnoh also started the Seattle-based Mangrove Action Project in 1992, and a series of workshops called "In the Hands of the Fishers" has spread from Southeast Asia to Sri Lanka, India, and Africa. Meanwhile, Yadfon's work has spread to 30 communities since 1985.

Charnsnoh insists the reason he was one of the recipients of the Goldman award was because of the nature of what he was trying to save, not the work itself. "I think that when we are talking about coastal resources, it's very important because it's connected to a very big area. Coastal resources, particularly in tropical and sub-tropical areas, are largely destroyed, and more than half of the mangrove forests are destroyed. This is a major problem. Secondly, many poor people are living along the coast and once the resources are gone or much degraded, what happens to these people?"

He credits the Goldman prize for giving his organization the strength of challenges. Charnsnoh isn't kidding himself that difficult times for regional environmental groups don't lie ahead. "By receiving the Goldman, I have some accreditation from friends and organizations at the international level. We are very happy and have more energy to continue. I think we can move faster, larger."

They will probably need that energy. The Thai Senate recently watered down a citizen-sponsored act calling for local communities to manage their own resources. The act will now be brought before review. Charnsnoh points out that Article 46 of the Thai constitution gives communities the right to govern their own forests. "I think rural people should have some right to management of their resources," he says with understatement. Another government plan to earmark mangrove forests for conservation, however, is also troubling to Charnsnoh. "That means communities will have difficulty because conservation measures are very strict." Yadfon is proposing dividing management evenly between locals and the government.

But the obstacles haven't taken their toll on Charnsnoh's love of his job. The 58-year-old, who plants trees and gardens organically in his leisure time, calls his work "a kind of happiness ... You are your own boss, you can think, you can make decisions on your own fate but responsibly. You feel free working as an NGO," he says, emphasizing that as an NGO, workers and villagers operate on an equal footing. He also believes in the innate power of non-violence, and condemns harming others through actions or words.

"People may have different careers, but as an activist working at an NGO, you develop more, maybe more than you have helped others develop. I think it's the duty of every Thai to rescue our nation."

(©2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact ads@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)