Water

Country Water Action: Thailand
Guarding the River from Generation to Generation
(April 2005)

By Floyd Whaley
External Relations Specialist, ADB

• Keeper of the forest
• Coordinating communities
• Fair and firm water management
• Saving the rivers for future generations

In a breezy village at the top of Pui mountain in northern Thailand, Yangchai Pokpongprai stands at the headwaters of one of the country's great rivers and explains why he and others work for little or no pay to preserve it waters.

"We are the guardians of this river," says the young village leader. "It is our responsibility to protect it."

Yangchai, whose name translates to "keeper of the forest," oversees the village near the source of the Ping, one of the mighty rivers that provide Thailand with much of its water.

His family has lived there for five generations and they have passed on a family tradition, as has other families in the village, of volunteering each year to protect the forest that provides the watershed for the river. Family members in the village offer one volunteer each year to dig firebreaks to halt forest fires.

"Every family joins in," he says. "And they bring their own lunch and digging equipment. It is a tradition in our village."

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For centuries, such family and village traditions have been used to manage the Ping River and the natural resources that surround it. The Thai government is now formalizing some of those traditional techniques by helping to form River Basin Organizations based on age-old principles.

"The Ping was the first River Basin Organization to be established in Thailand," according to Wasan Jompakdee, the chairman of Rivercare, an organization established to protect the Ping. "It was established here because we already had a form of water management that could be traced back 1,000 years."

The Upper Ping River Basin Committee was established in 1999 with the assistance of the Asian Development Bank. Since the concept was first introduced, it has spread across Thailand, with River Basin Organizations established at all 25 major rivers in the country.

The community-based approach that the organizations foster - rather than a top-down form of river management - is part of a national Integrated Water Resources Management program currently underway in Thailand. Countries worldwide have been making similar attempts since the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development called for all nations to adopt such plans by 2005.

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Downstream at the Ping, a river basin organization in action can be found in a simple, shaded area by the river where a weary-looking Woratep Mahayano talks quietly with other villagers in the Chomtong area near Chiang Mai.

Woratep is the chairman of the local river water users subcommittee and he decides, particularly in the dry season, when valves can be opened to feed water into an elaborate maze of ancient canals that serve area farms. His authority is traditional, not legal, but it is respected throughout the area under his jurisdiction.

"He is the Supreme Court over his part of the river," said Dr. Apichart Anukulamrphai, the president of the Water Resources Association in Thailand and one who helped establish Thailand's national water policy. "There are no appeals beyond his decision. It is final."

Woratep, and the villagers who assist him, patrol the river to decide which valves should be opened to allow water to be shared evenly among farmers and other residents in the area. They also look for those who violate the rules. When a valve is opened late at night, when they are not on patrol, they can discover evidence of it in the morning.

"Violators of the rules are fined, even if they are members of my family," says Woratep, who jokingly describes his role in un-glamorous terms. "I am judge, law enforcer, manager and garbage man. I take everyone's garbage when they are angry about the river."

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One user of downstream water, Pramote Samakkarns, the managing director of Bulaung Hotel and Resort in Chiang Mai, says he has seen the difference in the way the river has been managed in recent years.

He recalls swimming in the Huay Kaew waterfall on the outskirts of the city when he was a child and the water gushing down the falls. Then, several years ago, the waterfall dried up when there was illegal piping being done on the mountainside to siphon off the river to farms and businesses. Those practices have stopped and he now takes his son to swim in the swirling pool beneath the falls that he calls "the big jacuzzi".

"Everyone is involved in managing the river now, the resort owners, the farmers, everyone," said. "We learn together and we have found out that the farmers know more than the experts. They are helping us save this beautiful waterfall for my grandchildren."