日　時：2008年5月8日（木）　10：30～
場　所：京都大学大学院総合研究2号館（旧工学部4号館）4階 新第一講義室（AA470）

発表者：佐々木綾子（京都大学大学院アジア・アフリカ地域研究研究科/日本学術振興会 特別研究員）

発表テーマ：Transformations of Land-use and Forest Resource Management in
'Miang Tea Gardens', northern Thailand.

In the forested mountainous area of Northern Thailand, traditional tea cultivation fields – called 'miang tea gardens' – have been maintained for more than 500 years for producing fermented tea called 'miang'. In the miang tea gardens, tea trees occupy lower layers of the gardens, while the upper layers consist of large-canopy shade trees which protect tea trees from the exposure to sunlight. Tea gardens are also used for cattle grazing, partly for weeding. This production system, combined with locally preserved forest patches spreading on ridges and along streams for fuel woods gathering, is regarded as one of the typical agroforestry systems to harmonized agricultural production with forest conservation in the mountainous area of Northern Thailand. The miang villages had good reputation with their 'co-management' of forest resources by the villagers' initiative. They had strict local rules to secure various forest materials such as large amounts of fuel wood for steaming tea leaves.

This study examines the dynamics of land use and forest management at one miang village in Chiang Mai Province during the last three decades when Thailand experienced drastic changes in the industrial structure. The miang village had flexibly adapted to the new economic condition. Decrease of the demand for miang and labour shortage for miang production caused diversification of land use from miang garden to tree crops cultivation such as coffee and drinking-tea leaf and commercial field crops cultivation according to the demand of market. This diversification changed the idea of local people on resources management from village-based to household-based ones for predictable household strategies.

This case study suggests that local rules are quite vulnerable when economic activities of community members are diversified. Securing the economic sustainability of the system is a minimum requirement to maintain forested landscape associated with the traditional agroforestry system.