One thing that struck me about the burning season in northern Thailand was the way that Thai farmers, standing a couple of feet away from a smoldering rice field or a pile of burning rubbish at the side of the road would always say, when I asked them why the air was so polluted, that the smoke came from hill-tribe people or from people in Burma.
Unfortunately this common narrative (that it is hill-tribe people who burn and destroy forests) gives government authorities and big firms with good connections an excuse to carry out schemes that are far more destructive, in terms of destroying the natural environment, clearing/burning land etc… than anything that a small group of farmers might do.
Since Thai society already has a convenient, and relatively powerless scapegoat, the activities of these larger, more powerful groups usually goes unquestioned.
Also as post no 4 points out, when there are restrictions on what these groups can do, they just export their businesses to places like Laos, where rent’s cheaper (large companies negotiating long term agreements getting knock down rental rates which don’t factor in rising land prices etc…), where its much harder for the local population to fight for the rights to farm their their land in the traditional way (OK, this still involves burning but burning a few acres every xxx no of years is, as post 4 points out, more sustainable and less destructive than clearing land for a large forest plantation….) and where there’s less concern about the real effects (especially since it seems to be marketed as a ‘sustainable development and poverty reduction’ forestry project) of their activities.
Nick Nostitz:
Of course I understand the special sensitivity of 112 laws and the “ideologically driven points” that have been hammered unceasingly on Thai heads for centuries and easily whipped up into violent frenzy against dissenters and apostates by people with vested interests in the system. I’ve lived here long enough to realize the antithetical viciousness that coexist in direct proportion to the inscrutiable smiles among Thais that unfortunately many foreigners find bewilderingly disarming.
My commentary was on the quote “permitting such activity could mislead the public to believe the university agrees with such movement”. I’ve been in Thai academia long enough to see many such unending illogical thinking patterns that students absorb from Ajarns that prevents them from thinking and even saying “why not”?
As an observer, what I am interested is to understand how and why this movement occurred at this particular time. If in the past, questioning lese majeste laws could be considered almost lese majeste itself, how is it that this Nittirat group (some of whom I know) became suddenly courageous to publicly question what is a delicate and sensitive matter close to the hearts of Thais?
Re:- Sam 48
Sure the press is censored (and heavily self censored) but it’s not just censorship of the press that creates the gap between image and reality in Thailand. There’s also a lot of self censorship in the way that Thai’s present stories about their news/lives to foreigners and to the world outside. The lies and excuses that people make to cover up events slowly, over time become the accepted ‘truth…’
Sadly, the narratives tat hthese people create are often more powerful and last longer than the truth itself.
I’m guessing here as I’m not in Thailand anymore but, from a couple of comments I’ve seen on facebook, I would imagine that there are a lot of Thai people who believe (based on narratives presented by manager etc… as ‘news’) that the Nitirat group are to be hated. Few probably really know and understand what the group are proposing and why.
It’s hard not to see how the REDD program (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) would not involve a curtailment of swidden agricultural practices.
In my understanding at least, any REDD or Clean Development Mechanism forest payments for would necessarily involve verified CO2 uptakes from improved forest protection or forest management standards, as quantified in the form of standing biomass. In swidden cultivation zones, that would very likely entail at least a reduction in the annual area of swidden agriculture, as compared to the previous baseline scenario, if not complete elimination.
This would be the likely outcome of a REDD project even though swidden cultivation is quite likely ‘carbon neutral’ in many if not most cases (see Fox et al., 2011;
Thai-Hua Rubber Company’s ‘Clean Development Mechanism’ Afforestation/ Reforestation rubber and carbon project in Laos is one interesting case in point.
“Mitigation of GHG: Rubber based agro-forestry system for sustainable development and poverty reduction in Pakkading, Bolikhamsay Province, Lao PDR”
The developers, Lao-Thai Hua Rubber Company, a major Thai-based firm with a market cap of over US$300 million, forwards that their proposed project, 1,076 hectares of rubber trees, has a greater carbon uptake and storage capacity than the existing land use, which is swidden-managed upland rice and vegetable production by local farmers.
Under the company’s proposal, participating farmers who hold secure tenure documents issued by the Lao Government would agree to lease their degraded forest-land (i.e. swidden agricultural fields) to the company, for at least 30 years, in exchange for a rental fee of US $8/hectare/year. The farmers would also be eligible to apply to work on the plantation sites. The Government of Laos would receive a land royalty fee of US $5.30/hectare/year.
The first things to note that the market lease rate for quality plantation forest-land in Pakading district, with good soils and high annual rainfall and close access to Route 13, is probably more likely in the range of $30-$50/hectare/year. Let’s say $30 to be conservative.
So the company is already securing a rent of about $16/hectare/year.
Over 1,000 hectares for 30 years, this resource rent secured by the company on land rental fees alone already comes to about US$480,000. That’s not even considering how land in this Mekong-side district will become far more expensive in the next 30 years].
If I am reading this correctly, the developer also propose that the project would sequester a net of 1.2 million tonnes of CO2 over the next 30 years (“net anthropogenic GHG removals by sinks” in the project area). That’s about 40 tonnes C02 per hectare per year.
In a letter included in the CDM project documentation (see link above), Lao-Thai Hua estimates that over the lease period of the project these Certified Emission Reductions (CER)’s might be worth about US $15 million. The company claims that “Without this revenue the company can not justify the project.”
These days, if I am reading this right, CDM Certified Emission Reductions are trading in Europe carbon markets at about Euro 5/tonne ($6.50 US), so that would be about a US$7.9 million carbon subsidy to the company if those prices held through the 30 year lease period.
However, if certified carbon emission prices track steadily upwards (whether sold by the company under CDM or another framework), up to say, US$100/tonne by 2040, then that accumulation of 1.2 million in credits over 30 years might be worth more like… if I calculate this right, about US $75 million?
That’s in addition to their minimum secured land rent of about $0.5 million over 30 years.
Not bad for 1,000 hectares of land.
The Lao-Thai Hua Rubber proposal is currently at the validation stage.
The Laos Land Issues Working Group (LIWG) has submitted a rebuttal to the company’s application (in a document included in the link above). Under the CDM, developers need to demonstrate the principle of “additionality” (i.e. that their carbon project would not have occurred without CDM financial subsidies). The LIWG argues that since there are many rubber plantation projects being developed in Laos without the benefit of these CDM carbon subsidies (about 400,000 hectares in fact to date),the company’s proposal is not “additional” to the baseline situation.
Lastly, it really beggars belief to compare swidden agriculture with industrial rubber plantation management from a carbon emissions perspective.
Present day swidden cultivation in places like Pakkading District Laos is performed in a rotational system on hectare-sized upland plots of forest-land by household labour groups, producing rice, fruits, and vegetables for direct household consumption, using no significant petroleum-based inputs.
Commercial cash crop production such as rubber on the other hand, involves total vegetation removal (including stumps) by heavy equipment, mechanical cultivation, clean weeding, significant fertilizer and pesticide inputs, and mechanical harvesting. Then, a full rubber latex industrial commodity chain (say for motor tires), including processing, marketing, transportation, consumption and disposal of the end products is initiated, all of which is based upon petroleum inputs. When overmature, the rubber trees are processed into wooden furniture and shipped by ocean freight to global markets, and this also involves extensive petroleum inputs and carbon emissions.
It seems quite absurd to compare carbon neutral swidden rice production by peasant farmers on rotational forest fallows, with industrialized rubber plantation development and latex rubber /wood product commodity chains managed through multi-national firms, and then to provide a huge climate subsidy to the latter.
If anyone would like to modify my back-of-the-envelope calculations, please do so!
Anyways, I think Y├нngluck is the wrong person to address. What is left for her to say but “Yeah, I KNOW. But you have to understand that things are ‘a bit inconvenient’ for me that at present.”
Honestly, since they set up Chalerm’s web GeStaPo just a few weeks ago, I have my doubts and expect little from this govt that goes beyond securing their political survival.
You are right Peter, although not for 2010, but for “latest available data”. I was citing data from an earlier version of the same statistics that I had on file (the link I provided went to the more recent data), where Thailand was, in fact No. 2 (7.0), after the Philippines (7.1). Sorry about that. The Burma data are highly disputed (see the same page at: Homicide data series to be used for trends analyses, which shows major variation from the 10 rate). Thailand reports a declining trend, and a substantial one at that. Police are reporting this. As Sam Deedes says, the gap between perception and reality.
Yep, there is a fear of violence. But plenty are not afraid and realise that abandoning principles is not an answer to threats.
I also think the endless comparisons to 1976 are misplaced. There is no Red Gaur militia, no neighbouring countries collapsing into communism and no CPT. As someone else said – why not just use the police to keep the few PAD crazies out? As in 2008, you have to question who is backing these tiny protests and the violence and intimidation surrounding them.
And yes, there is a fear of change.
But when that “change” does come, as it inevitably will, I think plenty of Thais will realise life goes on, things are ok, the world hasn’t ended and new things can come into being.
And the reasons that the hysteria is getting so ramped up about 112 is that the entire “project” is in complete crisis, spiralling downwards into an inevitable collapse. If it was stable, secure and at the height of its powers this wouldn’t be happening. But it isn’t.
Why? Because it refuses to reform and thereby accommodate the general will of the Thai people.
The reasons for this outpouring of hysteria, threats etc are nothing to do with those asking for reforms/change but everything to do with those who don’t want any change at all. That’s the root cause of this. Not those seeking a pretty ordinary debate or seeking mild reforms.
It was a famous British socialist Nye Bevin who once said “Fascism… is the future refusing to be born.”
Question facing Thailand right now is how far are those with the guns prepared to go to hold back the future.
Jonfernquest writes: “I am always hoping that some Southeast Asian studies people will get engaged with issues such as agricultural policy and start posting to New Mandala to break the monotonous mono-focus year-after-year on lese-majeste and red shirts (who never seem to be engaged with the actual economic issues of poverty).” Try these, for starters:
PPL tend to forget that the PPP government initiated and invested 100M Baht in systems to track LM-abuses on the internet. 2 months before Abhisit was elected.
Some of the UDD followers, mainly the very leftist ones ( or ex- (?) communists ), are clearly anti-monarchy and are so full of the Prai-Amnart crap that their vision is blurred. But PT, and the majority of the “red” followers love their king and would most likely approve of the continuance of harsh punishments for LM abuses. Sad as it may be.
Please don’t just expect the PT to be this way or that way without having a clue or assuming things based on wishful thinking. The evidence is clear, from way back, that the PT are pro LM, if they think they gain anything from it.
For what it’s worth I did urge people not to generalise about the violence. My point is not the violence per se but the censorship of the press as part of the sickening official pretense that Thailand is all smiles. What other country has such a yawning gap between image and reality?
Call me old fashioned, and you may well laugh (in fact I’d be surprised if you didn’t considering this is Thailand) but isn’t it the role of the police in a democracy to defend free speech?
Should they not be there at Thammasat to protect Nitirat from violence? Is it not a question of the rector liaising with the police to ensure that all public meetings are properly stewarded?
Stephen: “Regarding your question about land confiscation and whether “there has really been some discontinuous change recently?”, as I understand it, it relates to the rise in land value due to increased profit potential from export crops like green gram, rubber and palm oil, stemming in part from the removal of restrictions on export to foreign markets since the turn of the 1990s. Green gram, for example, mostly went to India, so wasn’t affected by sanctions.”
Nice! I am familiar with the term neo-liberalism in the context of the US economy (e.g. Stiglitz’s critique) but didn’t realise you would use it in the context of agricultural policy. Agricultural markets here in northern Thailand and Laos are affected by supply and demand from China on the northern border (e.g. corn and garlic) and supposedly large Chinese-owned plantations are an issue in Laos. Strict laws on proxy ownership of agriculture by formers make it a non-issue in Thailand. It would nice to see balanced and rigorous academic research on these issues done outside of organizations with a political agenda. I would love to go back to grad school and do this 🙂 I am always hoping that some Southeast Asian studies people will get engaged with issues such as agricultural policy and start posting to New Mandala to break the monotonous mono-focus year-after-year on lese-majeste and red shirts (who never seem to be engaged with the actual economic issues of poverty).
I was imagining that your references to neoliberalism referred to the export-drivenness of Asian economies. Burma had a textile industry of fluctuating size over the last decades, for example. This is a topic I am very interested in, especially South Korea’s indsutrialization under Park Chung Hee. Attempts at alternatives to export driven growth such as import substitution largely failed, for example in the Philippines (See Growth and development in the Philippines: the role of the state and industrial policy, in Emerging Asia’s Growth practices, 2009, a wonderful little essay in a wonderful hard to find little book published by Chula Univ in Thailand).
One major benefit of Burma’s opening up will be the development of the media, anotehr subject of interest. Practices such as seizing of land by local elites should be fully exposed, though such exposure doesn’t seem to have discouraged Hun Sen and his cronies in Cambodia. The Filipina Sheila Cornell (now head of investigative journalism at Cornell) has been a pioneer in local investigative media. Her Investigating Local Governments: A Manual For Reporters (Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism) is a classic. But the same problems exist in the Philippines as in Thailand, local strongmen who will simple kill truth-revealing local journalists. How the media can be activated to bring about local change is very much an interesting and important issue. Media light being shed on problems in the healthcare sector would help too in the future, perhaps. Medical ethics seemed to be wholly lacking when I had my interactions with it on behalf of my mother in law in Yangon a decade ago. The owner of the large private hospital effectively tried to sell me a kidney from a Bangladeshi for $30,000 along with lifelong dialysis when a cursory examination would have revealed cancer of either uterus or cervix . Found out that many Burmese faced the same problems and sell the family home and all their assets and go bankrupt to generate the cash to save their loved ones . Thanks for the stimulating discussion 🙂
I wrote: “…if they are concerned Thai nationalism (anti-westernisation) will be mobilized.” In Kom Chad Leuk, Sumeth Tantivejakul, Secretary general of the Chai Patthana Foundation, warned Nitirat not to follow Farang’s interference on the Criminal Code 112. This is a symptom of anti-westernisation.
The democratically elected government should be standing up for the right… the necessity… to debate and discuss this and the other constitutional issues.
They should remind everyone that Thailand is a democracy, that that is the reason they are in power, that they are going to do what they were put in power to do… defend democracy and forestall another coup.
They should have the police out to protect and to serve. They should publicly bring up 6 October and say, “That is not going to happen again on our watch”.
Don’t misunderstand me, I respect completely those who have signed the letter and believe those who have done are completely committed to changing this law.
However, I do think CCAA112 have made a couple of strategical errors by adopting the Nitirat proposals.
First of all, in any political negotiation always put out a tougher stance than you are willing to accept. CCAA112 would’ve put themselves and Nitirat in a better position if they’d said “We want abolition and all the prisoners freed.” This is a very simple stance, that is unambiguous and easy to clarify.
By adopting this position CCAA112 would’ve created the space where Nitirat could’ve moved into – a ‘middle ground’ position.
As it is using the Nitirat ‘middle ground’ position from the start means three things. 1) What is the point of CCAA112 when they are identical to Nitirat? 2) Both groups have nowhere to go. 3) Abolitionists are now isolated, marginalised and alienated.
The abolitionists could’ve been very very useful to Nitirat strategically. Unfortunately the abolitionists can easily be dismissed as extremists or that they are “asking for too much and too quickly”.
I would also say that CCAA112 and Nitirat both adopting the same “middle ground” position will only be interpreted as one thing by the “amaart” – weakness. Hence they are going on an all attack on Nitirat.
And where were the prisoners and prisoners families in CCAA112’s campaign? Why not put their human story upfront and in a headline position? There are very very few people who didn’t feel sympathy for Ah Kong – this aspect has been totally under utilised.
Having said all that I still commend both CCAA112 and Nitirat for adopting a principled stand (even though I disagree with the reforms themselves) and acknowledge and respect the people taking the risk and pushing the debate forward.
Art Harun, a senior Malaysian lawyer and prominent social observer had this to SAY about the role of the monarchy in general and also the Perak Constitutional Crisis:
“To adopt a literal approach would vest a certain level of absolute power in the Ruler where such power does not exist in the first place. Can we imagine a situation where the Ruler may decide mid-term to change an MB because he thinks that MB does not command the confidence of the majority anymore?”
There was a time when many Malaysians were PLEASED with Raja Nazrin as he was speaking in what was perceived to be the language of liberals.
There were many who believed too, after the March 2008 elections, that the Raja of Perlis and the Sultan of Terengganu (then also the Agung/Supreme Head of State) was well within their means to reject the choice of candidate for Chief Minister/Menteri Besar of their states simply because those states were under Barisan Nasional.
How wrong were those thoughts and decision to allow the monarchs to intervene in the workings of a democracy.
If Thailand is any indicator, it would be wise for Malaysians to keep the royalty out of the workings of democracy and for royalties to stay out of the workings of the Malaysian democracy.
Thammasat University has allowed meetings of both political groupings on its premises over the past years of conflict. Sondhi L. has held in 2005 meetings there, later, after the coup, the anti 19th September Coup network has held its initial meetings at the football field and used Thammasat as starting point for its early anti coup marches in 2006/2007. The PAD held its meeting in spring 2008 there, and in 2009 in Thammasat’s Rangsit Campus’ sports stadium the festivities of the founding of the New Politics Party were held. Notable were also many Red Shirt affiliated seminars and concerts in the auditorium of the Ta Pa Chan Campus.
Late 2011 Siam Samakki held a meeting at the Pridi Statue there (which is somewhat ironic…).
The problem here is that the 112 issue and everything surrounding is filled with fear (and to some part this fear is justified), and paralyzes even many people who are not known to be monarchists.
There is fear over being forced to take a position, fear over being attacked by both sides, fear over personal security, fear over Thailand loosing it’s monarchy and therefore its perceived national (and personal) identity, fear over Thailand discontinuing its path to development, and foremost – fear of violence.
What appears as a reasonable discussion here can easily translate into violence on the streets over this ideologically driven point. On both sides of the debate are factions existing who are ready and willing to use violence (not to mention the constant threat of violence by the military in its role as supreme defender of the monarchy) – and sadly, the only point that not only radicals of both sides appear to agree upon is that violence is a very likely development.
It seems presently that even proposals by several “liberal monarchist” groups for certain amendments to the 112 laws fell on deaf ears.
The space for reasonable debate over 112 diminishes rapidly.
The funny thing is, the monarchists ought to be welcoming Nitirat’s proposals. They’re not trying to remove the lese majeste law, but only make its application more workable and its sentences less draconian. Both of which need to happen prior to succession. Applying the law in its current form to protect the “reputation” of Junior really is a recipe for disaster, given how the Thai people already feel about him. It amazes me the elites can’t come out of their mental bunker and see this.
#45: I may be missing something, Ralph, but according to my reading of the statistics in the link you kindly provide, Thailand doesn’t appear to rank No. 1 in homicide rates in Asia as you claim. How do you arrive at that conclusion? In the downloadable XL file under “Homicide Level for 2010”, it states that Myanmar, Indonesia, and the Philippines among other Asian countries have higher rates than Thailand at 10.2, 8.1 and 5.4 per 100k, respectively. Thailand’s rate of 5.3 is certainly high and a cause for concern but it’s not far from the rate of the United States at 5 and a heck of a lot lower than the rates for many other countries.
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Smoke across mainland Southeast Asia
One thing that struck me about the burning season in northern Thailand was the way that Thai farmers, standing a couple of feet away from a smoldering rice field or a pile of burning rubbish at the side of the road would always say, when I asked them why the air was so polluted, that the smoke came from hill-tribe people or from people in Burma.
Unfortunately this common narrative (that it is hill-tribe people who burn and destroy forests) gives government authorities and big firms with good connections an excuse to carry out schemes that are far more destructive, in terms of destroying the natural environment, clearing/burning land etc… than anything that a small group of farmers might do.
Since Thai society already has a convenient, and relatively powerless scapegoat, the activities of these larger, more powerful groups usually goes unquestioned.
Also as post no 4 points out, when there are restrictions on what these groups can do, they just export their businesses to places like Laos, where rent’s cheaper (large companies negotiating long term agreements getting knock down rental rates which don’t factor in rising land prices etc…), where its much harder for the local population to fight for the rights to farm their their land in the traditional way (OK, this still involves burning but burning a few acres every xxx no of years is, as post 4 points out, more sustainable and less destructive than clearing land for a large forest plantation….) and where there’s less concern about the real effects (especially since it seems to be marketed as a ‘sustainable development and poverty reduction’ forestry project) of their activities.
Pushing Nitirat to the edge
Nick Nostitz:
Of course I understand the special sensitivity of 112 laws and the “ideologically driven points” that have been hammered unceasingly on Thai heads for centuries and easily whipped up into violent frenzy against dissenters and apostates by people with vested interests in the system. I’ve lived here long enough to realize the antithetical viciousness that coexist in direct proportion to the inscrutiable smiles among Thais that unfortunately many foreigners find bewilderingly disarming.
My commentary was on the quote “permitting such activity could mislead the public to believe the university agrees with such movement”. I’ve been in Thai academia long enough to see many such unending illogical thinking patterns that students absorb from Ajarns that prevents them from thinking and even saying “why not”?
As an observer, what I am interested is to understand how and why this movement occurred at this particular time. If in the past, questioning lese majeste laws could be considered almost lese majeste itself, how is it that this Nittirat group (some of whom I know) became suddenly courageous to publicly question what is a delicate and sensitive matter close to the hearts of Thais?
Burma and the debates to come
Stephen,
Any information on the geography of these enclosures? Are they happening throughout rural Burma, or are they concentrated in, say, the Delta?
A catalogue of threats against the Khana Nitirat
Re:- Sam 48
Sure the press is censored (and heavily self censored) but it’s not just censorship of the press that creates the gap between image and reality in Thailand. There’s also a lot of self censorship in the way that Thai’s present stories about their news/lives to foreigners and to the world outside. The lies and excuses that people make to cover up events slowly, over time become the accepted ‘truth…’
Sadly, the narratives tat hthese people create are often more powerful and last longer than the truth itself.
I’m guessing here as I’m not in Thailand anymore but, from a couple of comments I’ve seen on facebook, I would imagine that there are a lot of Thai people who believe (based on narratives presented by manager etc… as ‘news’) that the Nitirat group are to be hated. Few probably really know and understand what the group are proposing and why.
Smoke across mainland Southeast Asia
Hi Colum:
It’s hard not to see how the REDD program (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) would not involve a curtailment of swidden agricultural practices.
In my understanding at least, any REDD or Clean Development Mechanism forest payments for would necessarily involve verified CO2 uptakes from improved forest protection or forest management standards, as quantified in the form of standing biomass. In swidden cultivation zones, that would very likely entail at least a reduction in the annual area of swidden agriculture, as compared to the previous baseline scenario, if not complete elimination.
This would be the likely outcome of a REDD project even though swidden cultivation is quite likely ‘carbon neutral’ in many if not most cases (see Fox et al., 2011;
http://ccafs.cgiar.org/sites/default/files/assets/docs/ccafs-wp-09-swidden-rubber-and-carbon.pdf
Thai-Hua Rubber Company’s ‘Clean Development Mechanism’ Afforestation/ Reforestation rubber and carbon project in Laos is one interesting case in point.
See:
http://cdm.unfccc.int/Projects/Validation/DB/PSO49NLKSHN2OGARN9FNR6NE6ZCBFQ/view.html.
“Mitigation of GHG: Rubber based agro-forestry system for sustainable development and poverty reduction in Pakkading, Bolikhamsay Province, Lao PDR”
The developers, Lao-Thai Hua Rubber Company, a major Thai-based firm with a market cap of over US$300 million, forwards that their proposed project, 1,076 hectares of rubber trees, has a greater carbon uptake and storage capacity than the existing land use, which is swidden-managed upland rice and vegetable production by local farmers.
Under the company’s proposal, participating farmers who hold secure tenure documents issued by the Lao Government would agree to lease their degraded forest-land (i.e. swidden agricultural fields) to the company, for at least 30 years, in exchange for a rental fee of US $8/hectare/year. The farmers would also be eligible to apply to work on the plantation sites. The Government of Laos would receive a land royalty fee of US $5.30/hectare/year.
The first things to note that the market lease rate for quality plantation forest-land in Pakading district, with good soils and high annual rainfall and close access to Route 13, is probably more likely in the range of $30-$50/hectare/year. Let’s say $30 to be conservative.
So the company is already securing a rent of about $16/hectare/year.
Over 1,000 hectares for 30 years, this resource rent secured by the company on land rental fees alone already comes to about US$480,000. That’s not even considering how land in this Mekong-side district will become far more expensive in the next 30 years].
If I am reading this correctly, the developer also propose that the project would sequester a net of 1.2 million tonnes of CO2 over the next 30 years (“net anthropogenic GHG removals by sinks” in the project area). That’s about 40 tonnes C02 per hectare per year.
In a letter included in the CDM project documentation (see link above), Lao-Thai Hua estimates that over the lease period of the project these Certified Emission Reductions (CER)’s might be worth about US $15 million. The company claims that “Without this revenue the company can not justify the project.”
These days, if I am reading this right, CDM Certified Emission Reductions are trading in Europe carbon markets at about Euro 5/tonne ($6.50 US), so that would be about a US$7.9 million carbon subsidy to the company if those prices held through the 30 year lease period.
However, if certified carbon emission prices track steadily upwards (whether sold by the company under CDM or another framework), up to say, US$100/tonne by 2040, then that accumulation of 1.2 million in credits over 30 years might be worth more like… if I calculate this right, about US $75 million?
That’s in addition to their minimum secured land rent of about $0.5 million over 30 years.
Not bad for 1,000 hectares of land.
The Lao-Thai Hua Rubber proposal is currently at the validation stage.
The Laos Land Issues Working Group (LIWG) has submitted a rebuttal to the company’s application (in a document included in the link above). Under the CDM, developers need to demonstrate the principle of “additionality” (i.e. that their carbon project would not have occurred without CDM financial subsidies). The LIWG argues that since there are many rubber plantation projects being developed in Laos without the benefit of these CDM carbon subsidies (about 400,000 hectares in fact to date),the company’s proposal is not “additional” to the baseline situation.
Lastly, it really beggars belief to compare swidden agriculture with industrial rubber plantation management from a carbon emissions perspective.
Present day swidden cultivation in places like Pakkading District Laos is performed in a rotational system on hectare-sized upland plots of forest-land by household labour groups, producing rice, fruits, and vegetables for direct household consumption, using no significant petroleum-based inputs.
Commercial cash crop production such as rubber on the other hand, involves total vegetation removal (including stumps) by heavy equipment, mechanical cultivation, clean weeding, significant fertilizer and pesticide inputs, and mechanical harvesting. Then, a full rubber latex industrial commodity chain (say for motor tires), including processing, marketing, transportation, consumption and disposal of the end products is initiated, all of which is based upon petroleum inputs. When overmature, the rubber trees are processed into wooden furniture and shipped by ocean freight to global markets, and this also involves extensive petroleum inputs and carbon emissions.
It seems quite absurd to compare carbon neutral swidden rice production by peasant farmers on rotational forest fallows, with industrialized rubber plantation development and latex rubber /wood product commodity chains managed through multi-national firms, and then to provide a huge climate subsidy to the latter.
If anyone would like to modify my back-of-the-envelope calculations, please do so!
International solidarity for the Amendment of Article 112
Anyways, I think Y├нngluck is the wrong person to address. What is left for her to say but “Yeah, I KNOW. But you have to understand that things are ‘a bit inconvenient’ for me that at present.”
Honestly, since they set up Chalerm’s web GeStaPo just a few weeks ago, I have my doubts and expect little from this govt that goes beyond securing their political survival.
A catalogue of threats against the Khana Nitirat
You are right Peter, although not for 2010, but for “latest available data”. I was citing data from an earlier version of the same statistics that I had on file (the link I provided went to the more recent data), where Thailand was, in fact No. 2 (7.0), after the Philippines (7.1). Sorry about that. The Burma data are highly disputed (see the same page at: Homicide data series to be used for trends analyses, which shows major variation from the 10 rate). Thailand reports a declining trend, and a substantial one at that. Police are reporting this. As Sam Deedes says, the gap between perception and reality.
Pushing Nitirat to the edge
Nick Nostitz
Yep, there is a fear of violence. But plenty are not afraid and realise that abandoning principles is not an answer to threats.
I also think the endless comparisons to 1976 are misplaced. There is no Red Gaur militia, no neighbouring countries collapsing into communism and no CPT. As someone else said – why not just use the police to keep the few PAD crazies out? As in 2008, you have to question who is backing these tiny protests and the violence and intimidation surrounding them.
And yes, there is a fear of change.
But when that “change” does come, as it inevitably will, I think plenty of Thais will realise life goes on, things are ok, the world hasn’t ended and new things can come into being.
And the reasons that the hysteria is getting so ramped up about 112 is that the entire “project” is in complete crisis, spiralling downwards into an inevitable collapse. If it was stable, secure and at the height of its powers this wouldn’t be happening. But it isn’t.
Why? Because it refuses to reform and thereby accommodate the general will of the Thai people.
The reasons for this outpouring of hysteria, threats etc are nothing to do with those asking for reforms/change but everything to do with those who don’t want any change at all. That’s the root cause of this. Not those seeking a pretty ordinary debate or seeking mild reforms.
It was a famous British socialist Nye Bevin who once said “Fascism… is the future refusing to be born.”
Question facing Thailand right now is how far are those with the guns prepared to go to hold back the future.
Burma and the debates to come
Jonfernquest writes: “I am always hoping that some Southeast Asian studies people will get engaged with issues such as agricultural policy and start posting to New Mandala to break the monotonous mono-focus year-after-year on lese-majeste and red shirts (who never seem to be engaged with the actual economic issues of poverty).” Try these, for starters:
http://www.newmandala.org/2009/09/09/thailands-low-agricultural-productivity/
http://www.newmandala.org/2009/09/10/more-on-thailands-low-agricultural-productivity/
http://www.newmandala.org/2009/07/23/more-on-the-garlic-roller-coaster/
http://www.newmandala.org/2009/07/14/the-garlic-roller-coaster/
http://www.newmandala.org/2008/06/18/privatise-the-profits-socialise-the-losses/
http://www.newmandala.org/2011/12/08/cambodias-rice-conundrum/
http://www.newmandala.org/2011/10/16/rice-mortgage-scheme-underway/
http://www.newmandala.org/2011/03/04/china-and-the-mekong-region-beyond-the-territorial-trap/
And another coming very shortly on the rice price support scheme.
Pheua Thai but for lese majeste
PPL tend to forget that the PPP government initiated and invested 100M Baht in systems to track LM-abuses on the internet. 2 months before Abhisit was elected.
Some of the UDD followers, mainly the very leftist ones ( or ex- (?) communists ), are clearly anti-monarchy and are so full of the Prai-Amnart crap that their vision is blurred. But PT, and the majority of the “red” followers love their king and would most likely approve of the continuance of harsh punishments for LM abuses. Sad as it may be.
Please don’t just expect the PT to be this way or that way without having a clue or assuming things based on wishful thinking. The evidence is clear, from way back, that the PT are pro LM, if they think they gain anything from it.
Please have a look @ http://2bangkok.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/scouts01.jpg on http://2bangkok.com/fencing-off-sanam-luang.html. Why do they have yellow shirts?
A catalogue of threats against the Khana Nitirat
For what it’s worth I did urge people not to generalise about the violence. My point is not the violence per se but the censorship of the press as part of the sickening official pretense that Thailand is all smiles. What other country has such a yawning gap between image and reality?
Pushing Nitirat to the edge
Call me old fashioned, and you may well laugh (in fact I’d be surprised if you didn’t considering this is Thailand) but isn’t it the role of the police in a democracy to defend free speech?
Should they not be there at Thammasat to protect Nitirat from violence? Is it not a question of the rector liaising with the police to ensure that all public meetings are properly stewarded?
We can dream, but dreams can become reality.
Burma and the debates to come
Stephen: “Regarding your question about land confiscation and whether “there has really been some discontinuous change recently?”, as I understand it, it relates to the rise in land value due to increased profit potential from export crops like green gram, rubber and palm oil, stemming in part from the removal of restrictions on export to foreign markets since the turn of the 1990s. Green gram, for example, mostly went to India, so wasn’t affected by sanctions.”
Nice! I am familiar with the term neo-liberalism in the context of the US economy (e.g. Stiglitz’s critique) but didn’t realise you would use it in the context of agricultural policy. Agricultural markets here in northern Thailand and Laos are affected by supply and demand from China on the northern border (e.g. corn and garlic) and supposedly large Chinese-owned plantations are an issue in Laos. Strict laws on proxy ownership of agriculture by formers make it a non-issue in Thailand. It would nice to see balanced and rigorous academic research on these issues done outside of organizations with a political agenda. I would love to go back to grad school and do this 🙂 I am always hoping that some Southeast Asian studies people will get engaged with issues such as agricultural policy and start posting to New Mandala to break the monotonous mono-focus year-after-year on lese-majeste and red shirts (who never seem to be engaged with the actual economic issues of poverty).
I was imagining that your references to neoliberalism referred to the export-drivenness of Asian economies. Burma had a textile industry of fluctuating size over the last decades, for example. This is a topic I am very interested in, especially South Korea’s indsutrialization under Park Chung Hee. Attempts at alternatives to export driven growth such as import substitution largely failed, for example in the Philippines (See Growth and development in the Philippines: the role of the state and industrial policy, in Emerging Asia’s Growth practices, 2009, a wonderful little essay in a wonderful hard to find little book published by Chula Univ in Thailand).
One major benefit of Burma’s opening up will be the development of the media, anotehr subject of interest. Practices such as seizing of land by local elites should be fully exposed, though such exposure doesn’t seem to have discouraged Hun Sen and his cronies in Cambodia. The Filipina Sheila Cornell (now head of investigative journalism at Cornell) has been a pioneer in local investigative media. Her Investigating Local Governments: A Manual For Reporters (Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism) is a classic. But the same problems exist in the Philippines as in Thailand, local strongmen who will simple kill truth-revealing local journalists. How the media can be activated to bring about local change is very much an interesting and important issue. Media light being shed on problems in the healthcare sector would help too in the future, perhaps. Medical ethics seemed to be wholly lacking when I had my interactions with it on behalf of my mother in law in Yangon a decade ago. The owner of the large private hospital effectively tried to sell me a kidney from a Bangladeshi for $30,000 along with lifelong dialysis when a cursory examination would have revealed cancer of either uterus or cervix . Found out that many Burmese faced the same problems and sell the family home and all their assets and go bankrupt to generate the cash to save their loved ones . Thanks for the stimulating discussion 🙂
International solidarity for the Amendment of Article 112
I wrote: “…if they are concerned Thai nationalism (anti-westernisation) will be mobilized.” In Kom Chad Leuk, Sumeth Tantivejakul, Secretary general of the Chai Patthana Foundation, warned Nitirat not to follow Farang’s interference on the Criminal Code 112. This is a symptom of anti-westernisation.
Pushing Nitirat to the edge
The democratically elected government should be standing up for the right… the necessity… to debate and discuss this and the other constitutional issues.
They should remind everyone that Thailand is a democracy, that that is the reason they are in power, that they are going to do what they were put in power to do… defend democracy and forestall another coup.
They should have the police out to protect and to serve. They should publicly bring up 6 October and say, “That is not going to happen again on our watch”.
They’re worse than zero.
International solidarity for the Amendment of Article 112
Andrew Johnson
Don’t misunderstand me, I respect completely those who have signed the letter and believe those who have done are completely committed to changing this law.
However, I do think CCAA112 have made a couple of strategical errors by adopting the Nitirat proposals.
First of all, in any political negotiation always put out a tougher stance than you are willing to accept. CCAA112 would’ve put themselves and Nitirat in a better position if they’d said “We want abolition and all the prisoners freed.” This is a very simple stance, that is unambiguous and easy to clarify.
By adopting this position CCAA112 would’ve created the space where Nitirat could’ve moved into – a ‘middle ground’ position.
As it is using the Nitirat ‘middle ground’ position from the start means three things. 1) What is the point of CCAA112 when they are identical to Nitirat? 2) Both groups have nowhere to go. 3) Abolitionists are now isolated, marginalised and alienated.
The abolitionists could’ve been very very useful to Nitirat strategically. Unfortunately the abolitionists can easily be dismissed as extremists or that they are “asking for too much and too quickly”.
I would also say that CCAA112 and Nitirat both adopting the same “middle ground” position will only be interpreted as one thing by the “amaart” – weakness. Hence they are going on an all attack on Nitirat.
And where were the prisoners and prisoners families in CCAA112’s campaign? Why not put their human story upfront and in a headline position? There are very very few people who didn’t feel sympathy for Ah Kong – this aspect has been totally under utilised.
Having said all that I still commend both CCAA112 and Nitirat for adopting a principled stand (even though I disagree with the reforms themselves) and acknowledge and respect the people taking the risk and pushing the debate forward.
Review of Palace, Political Party and Power
Art Harun, a senior Malaysian lawyer and prominent social observer had this to SAY about the role of the monarchy in general and also the Perak Constitutional Crisis:
There was a time when many Malaysians were PLEASED with Raja Nazrin as he was speaking in what was perceived to be the language of liberals.
There were many who believed too, after the March 2008 elections, that the Raja of Perlis and the Sultan of Terengganu (then also the Agung/Supreme Head of State) was well within their means to reject the choice of candidate for Chief Minister/Menteri Besar of their states simply because those states were under Barisan Nasional.
How wrong were those thoughts and decision to allow the monarchs to intervene in the workings of a democracy.
If Thailand is any indicator, it would be wise for Malaysians to keep the royalty out of the workings of democracy and for royalties to stay out of the workings of the Malaysian democracy.
Pushing Nitirat to the edge
“Khon Ngai Ngai”:
Thammasat University has allowed meetings of both political groupings on its premises over the past years of conflict. Sondhi L. has held in 2005 meetings there, later, after the coup, the anti 19th September Coup network has held its initial meetings at the football field and used Thammasat as starting point for its early anti coup marches in 2006/2007. The PAD held its meeting in spring 2008 there, and in 2009 in Thammasat’s Rangsit Campus’ sports stadium the festivities of the founding of the New Politics Party were held. Notable were also many Red Shirt affiliated seminars and concerts in the auditorium of the Ta Pa Chan Campus.
Late 2011 Siam Samakki held a meeting at the Pridi Statue there (which is somewhat ironic…).
The problem here is that the 112 issue and everything surrounding is filled with fear (and to some part this fear is justified), and paralyzes even many people who are not known to be monarchists.
There is fear over being forced to take a position, fear over being attacked by both sides, fear over personal security, fear over Thailand loosing it’s monarchy and therefore its perceived national (and personal) identity, fear over Thailand discontinuing its path to development, and foremost – fear of violence.
What appears as a reasonable discussion here can easily translate into violence on the streets over this ideologically driven point. On both sides of the debate are factions existing who are ready and willing to use violence (not to mention the constant threat of violence by the military in its role as supreme defender of the monarchy) – and sadly, the only point that not only radicals of both sides appear to agree upon is that violence is a very likely development.
It seems presently that even proposals by several “liberal monarchist” groups for certain amendments to the 112 laws fell on deaf ears.
The space for reasonable debate over 112 diminishes rapidly.
What to do now?
Pushing Nitirat to the edge
The funny thing is, the monarchists ought to be welcoming Nitirat’s proposals. They’re not trying to remove the lese majeste law, but only make its application more workable and its sentences less draconian. Both of which need to happen prior to succession. Applying the law in its current form to protect the “reputation” of Junior really is a recipe for disaster, given how the Thai people already feel about him. It amazes me the elites can’t come out of their mental bunker and see this.
A catalogue of threats against the Khana Nitirat
#45: I may be missing something, Ralph, but according to my reading of the statistics in the link you kindly provide, Thailand doesn’t appear to rank No. 1 in homicide rates in Asia as you claim. How do you arrive at that conclusion? In the downloadable XL file under “Homicide Level for 2010”, it states that Myanmar, Indonesia, and the Philippines among other Asian countries have higher rates than Thailand at 10.2, 8.1 and 5.4 per 100k, respectively. Thailand’s rate of 5.3 is certainly high and a cause for concern but it’s not far from the rate of the United States at 5 and a heck of a lot lower than the rates for many other countries.