Long-running environmental saga no closer to a happy resolution
Category: Eye Original
On the banks of Thailand’s Mun River, villages are struggling to survive in the shadow of the dams
Raiwan Anan-uea, 48, recalls a simple and happy adolescence in the district of Rasi Salai, where a dozen villages shared the abundant resources available in this remote corner of Isan (north-eastern) Thailand. “All year round we could grow rice, beans, cucumbers and potatoes. We could pick bamboo, catch catfish and water snails, cultivate honey, graze […]
Transboundary haze: The hidden price of cheap maize
Industrial maize farming in Myanmar’s Shan State is devastating families and landscapes as well as fuelling ever-increasing levels of transboundary haze, generating urgent calls for serious changes to animal feed supply chains.
Buried in debt: Shan contract farmers’ future rocked by insecurity
Apart from being a source of transboundary haze, poorly regulated contract farming is trapping the small farmers of Myanmar’s Shan State in a cycle of overwhelming debt, land dispossession and environmental degradation.
Beyond industrial maize farming’s dead-end in Myanmar
Diversified farming systems and agrobiodiversity are essential in defending food security and coping with climate crisis. But both are being undermined in Myanmar’s Shan State, where the industrial maize industry is making local farmers more vulnerable to climate change.
The visual preservation of an early anti-dam struggle
In 1992, an environmental struggle between local communities and the government began in Si Saket province of Northeast Thailand, when the government built the 17-meter-high Rasi Salai Irrigation Dam with little transparency or discussion with local villagers. Blocking the flow of the Mun River flooded a vast area of land that the villagers had utilised […]
Spotlight on the right to a healthy environment in Southeast Asia
A new report from the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, shows how countries in Southeast Asia are recognising the right to a healthy environment in their laws, policies, and courts.
Sustaining Vietnam’s Robusta through uncertainty
A discreet movement of smallholders within Vietnam’s massive coffee industry are leading efforts to ensure the industry’s survival amidst extensive climate change and market threats.
As Wetlands Ail, conservationist sees future in villagers’ guardianship
Seila is one of the few conservationists who spends the many hours of listening needed to earn the trust of locals.
Frightened by river changes, villagers blame Laos dam, seek answers
CHAN MUYHONG & DANELLE OLSEN The sun cast its warmest rays before dusk across the farms on Koh Pnov, one of the Mekong River islands substantial enough to survive the river’s seasonal rise and fall. Though usually drenched by the late afternoon showers of rainy season, on a bright August afternoon village leaders recounted the […]