Beginning in 1984, a group of environmentally concerned Thais including environmental activists, academics and government foresters jointly began a dialogue series called the “Eco-forum” to discuss and analyze the social and environmental implications of Thailand’s rapid industrialization. This was a good beginning for the movement; however it was just an internal activity to educate the forum members and there was no implementation of activity directly. Thus it was lacking in social, economic, and political implications. To fill this gap, two years later we established the Project for Ecological Recovery (PER), a non-governmental organization in recognition of the need to strengthen the environmental movement in Thailand. Under PER, we undertook various initiatives aimed at promoting sustainable and equitable use and management of natural resources both at local and national levels. At the local level, efforts focused on empowering local communities to actively participate in and shape decisions that affect their access to and control over natural resources, and by extension their livelihoods, culture and wellbeing. At the national level, we facilitated the building of strategic alliances between environmentalists, academics, students, and local community groups to influence policies concerning the environment and development.
 

This early work resulted in two landmark national environmental campaigns. The first led to the cancellation of the Nam Choan hydroelectric dam project in 1988, which would have flooded parts of Thailand’s largest remaining forest, the Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary. The second was a campaign against the commercial logging industry, which culminated in the declaration of a nationwide logging ban in 1989. The success of these campaigns marked an important turning point for the environmental movement in Thailand; the movement created new networks that went beyond traditional ideological and class boundaries.

Thailand’s rapid industrialization and consequent depletion of its natural resource base, coupled with growing local opposition from civil society groups to environmentally and socially inappropriate development, prompted Thailand to expand its resource frontiers into neighboring countries, effectively exporting its environmental problems to its poorer regional counterparts like Laos and Burma. Realizing this, a new project was established to work at the regional level. Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance (TERRA) was founded 1991 at about the time when the perception of the Mekong region moved from an ecological to economic viewpoint. This shift is personified in the establishment of the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to work towards greater economic integration among the Mekong countries, including Cambodia, Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and South China. The GMS project has been an important catalyst for the growth of a regional resource economy through, for example, the promotion of a regional power grid and hydropower investment and the construction of infrastructure to facilitate cross border trade.

In recent history of Thailand, a number of serious issues involving power plants and community groups resulted in the establishment of an informal movement called, the “Sustainable Energy Network.” The movement includes community representatives, NGOs, academics, energy analysts, and interested parties. From a group of ecology advocates we became sustainable energy and ecology advocates. Recognizing the strength of state utility and private power companies, the movement took a different approach; important efforts were placed in researching the rationale of power sector development. In debates with all parties, the movement utilized available data and independent research to argue successfully that the electricity demand forecast made by the energy planner and expert, was too high compared with the economic growth of the country. The success of this argument managed to delay and change the Bo Nok and Hin Krud power plant project.