ABSTRACT
Concern is also expressed in the next three papers. Ronald Ng looks at man-land relationships and the traditional responses to population pressure in North East Thailand, while Harvey Demaine examines the crucial question of how man has approached the management of water resources in South East Asia. Then, in an important study, Christine Mougne surveys the customs and beliefs surrounding hUman reproduction and the attitudes to family planning recorded in Ban Pong, a village in Northern Thailand. The last is, perhaps, a telling contribution to the study of the role of women in the Third World and is an interesting example of a woman anthropologist using her sensitivity to obtain a close insight into the patterns of conception, pregnancy and childbirth in her village. Both Mougne and Ng assess the ways in which Thai people perceive the problems of population pressure, while Demaine comes to the significant conclusion that 'governments in South East Asia, anxious to improve agriculture in their countries through the provision of water control facilities, should attach as much ritual significance to the organisation of irrigation water supplies as their predecessors did to the task of providing rain water. '
