SOCIOECOLOGICAL DETERMINANTS OF LAND DEGRADATION AND RURAL POVERTY INNORTHEAST THAILAND

The discussion above illustrates the inadequacy of many of the develop ment strategies that have been pursued in Northeast Thailand. The prev ailing social, political, and economic, policies and trends have resul ted in the transformation of the people of the Northeast from a relati vely self-sustaining population to an increasingly impoverished one. I n the course of the movement away from relatively self-sufficient subs istence-oriented production, they have been exposed to both the 'rigou rs of the market' and changing policies regarding access to markets, c ash-crops, and land tenure - with all of their destabilizing, and in t his case impoverishing, effects. This transformation has resulted in i ncreased land degradation and rural poverty in the Northeast. Threaten ed by the potential political and social repercussions of these change s, development authorities have tried to respond by exploring differen t institutional and implementation strategies. These included infrastr ucture investments based on models derived from other regions, as well as Land settlement, village cooperatives, and other micro-level proje cts. The failure of these approaches to alleviate rural poverty in the Northeast prompted more 'participatory' and 'bottom-up' development s trategies (e.g, in the form of the 'equity model'). However, these att empts as well have run into difficulties, with explanations centring a round the lack of coordination among different development agencies, l ack of training, and related problems. Such explanations focus on tech nical issues that presumably could be overcome with more coordination, information, and technically-skilled people. The question is: can an improvement in the method of implementation of these projects, actuall y alleviate the problems of poverty and land-degradation in the rural Northeast? This study indicates that the real problem lies more in the failure to confront the reasons why these policies have been designed and implemented in the ways that they have been to date - including p roblems associated with the development 'paradigm' which is being used - as well as the failure to confront the actual circumstances and req uirements of the local people involved. It is critically important to recognize the underlying forces that have resulted in resource poverty , migration, land hunger, and land insecurity, and to recognize and ca stigate the policies that themselves result in land degradation. Until the underlying causes are recognized, and pressure is exerted to brin g about change, rural development projects, no matter how well-meaning , are likely to differ primarily in the degree to which they fail to a lleviate, or in fact even contribute to, rural poverty and environment al degradation in the region.