Participation of villagers in community forest management: A case study of Taladkeelek Village, Mae Pong Sub-district, Doi Saket District Chiang Mai Province

Abstract

The study aimed 1) to emphasize community context 2) community engagement in forest management; and 3) to analyze community strengths, weakness, opportunities, and challenges. The qualitative methodology was adhered by collecting in-depth data from key informants including community leaders, community committee, local wisdom, and community members, totally 25 persons with the research tools such as observation form, in-depth interview guideline, and focus group discussion. The data was analyzed by SWOT Analysis and its description.

The results were as follows. Community context in the social aspect, it was revealed that relationship within the community was strong kinships; in the administration, it was shown that the community set up some rules and regulations among them; in the economics, it was reflected that there were rich natural resources which could be the capital for production; and in the culture, tradition, believes and rites inheriting from ancients, it was emphasized by the forest management through community system of knowledge, believes, wisdom, and culture with engagement of people living the community in 1) setup of committee, 2) identification of rules and regulations in usage, 3) specification of punishment in case of rules breaking, 4) new tree plantation, 5) promotion of eco-tourism, 6) organization of forest guard for prevention of illegal tree cutting and wild fire. In addition, the SWOT Analysis was manifested that the strengths were strong community leaders, consciousness, culture in term of tradition and believes, and rules and regulations; the weakness was lack of knowledge in management; the opportunities were more empowerment and support from government sectors in forest reservation; and the limitation/challenges were lack of fund support, not clear boundary of forest reservation and also condition of laws.

The suggestions were presented that more support of government sectors was required; proactive working; networking; strengthening related knowledge; flexible implementation; and more research.