ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the level of environmental consciousness and responsibility of representative government officials and industrialists and the educated public in terms of their level of consciousness and cognizance of the causal factors. The main institutional causes of environmental problems are: business corporations pursuing profit and neglecting environmental costs and corrupt or ineffective government and political institutions. Thailand is predominantly an agriculture country, with seventy percent of the labor force in the agricultural sector. In most industrial societies, an increasing number of laws and regulations have been created to deal with the social and environmental costs of production. Law enforcement has been crippled by the social system that values person and connections over principles and law. Numerous seminars in Thailand on the environment have concluded that the country's environmental problems are due to rapid industrial development and the exploitation of natural resources for export, leading to deforestation, depletion of mineral resources, and pollution of waterways and the atmosphere.
