ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines a key contribution of this monograph—the authorised environmental discourse (AED). The AED describes how the state or those in positions of authority define and weaponise nature and the environment to the detriment of those without authority (in this case, Thailand’s Indigenous communities). I present how the environment has been defined throughout Thai history up to the present, and how conservation rhetoric has been used as a tool of the state to dislocate Indigenous communities from their land and the heritage tied to these natural spaces. In particular, I examine how the state’s AED impacts the heritage that falls in between the Western division of nature and culture to take agency (in this case, over rights to nature) away from Indigenous communities like the Kui.
