ABSTRACT
On 13 April 1999 the Director General of Thailand’s Royal Forest Department (RFD) landed with his helicopter in the Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary at the place where the Karen living in the sanctuary had just started to celebrate an important annual religious festival. Contrary to the image of the forest-destroying hill tribes deployed by the RFD and the military, the Karen in Thung Yai conceive themselves as people living in and with the forest, as part of a complex ‘local community’ of plants, animals, humans, and spiritual beings. Modern concepts of nature conservation had gained a foothold in Thailand around the middle of the twentieth century, together with modernization ideology. Due to rising criticism regarding deforestation and the RFD’s commercial orientation, as well as resistance against its resettlement policy in the forest reserves, the agency was forced to considerably shift its focus to conservation forestry, not least as reflected in the Thai Forestry Sector Master Plan.
