Trends of land use change and interpretation of impacts in the Mae Chan area of northern Thailand

For the past two decades, the montane highlands of northern Thailand have been rapidly and deeply integrated intro the market economy. Fundamental changes in the farm economic and institutional environments have led a rapid transformation of agricultural practices and diversification of both on-farm and off-farm activities in response to new and more differentiated farmers' strategies. Such agrarian transformations are quantitatively assessed by analyzing land use changes at the watershed level in Mae Salaep, an Akha village of Mae Chan area in Chiang Rai province. Changes in field size, fallow land, relative importance of various types of cropping systems, soil and water onservation measures are documented. Results of complementary field- and farm-level surveys are used to interpret these changes, and to assess their effects on fanner differentiation as well as land degradation mechanisms. Population increase, Thai citizenship, labor mobility, communication infrastructure, farmers' familiarity with cash cropping and marketing channels, cultural changes and a succession of projects and other state interventions were found to be the major forces underlying the emergence of this new market-integrated agrarian system. Finally, the implications of these deep transformations of highland livelihood systems on improved integrated natural resources management and local governance are discussed- Particularly, the need for innovative mechanisms to facilitate coordination and negotiation among an increased number of key stakeholders is highlighted. (Résumé d'auteur