Environment and development in coastal regions and in small islands

The Adang Archipelago of the Andaman Sea, Southwest Thailand, is remarkable for the diversity of marine life present, with a total of 288 fish and 137 coral species. Since the 1910's, it has been home of a group of Urak Lawoi, a formerly semi-sea nomadic people who maintained permanent houses on land and were nomadic in their food foraging practices. The archipelago became a part of Tarutao National Marine Park in 1974. Although the Urak Lawoi were granted Thai citizenship a few decades ago, they have remained the group most vulnerable to outside forces, enjoying the least negotiation power, and being most affected by how other stakeholder groups use or manage the resources upon which the Urak Lawoi themselves depend for their livelihood. Since moving into the archipelago in the early 20th century, all of their long-term village heads have been outsiders.

Traditionally, the Urak Lawoi had villages and temporary living sites for their longer harvesting periods scattered throughout the archipelago. After the park establishment, their semi-nomadic foraging practices were no longer approved. Most Urak Lawoi were resettled to Lipe, a small island with an area of approximately 5 km2. Today, nearly 1,000 people live on Lipe and. a community of approximately 150 people continue to live on two northeastern beaches of Adang Island.

Before land titles were introduced in 1940, the Urak Lawoi communally owned natural resources and all individuals had access to them for subsistence purposes. There was no concept of private or state ownership. Lipe is the only island where private land ownership exists since land titles there had been assigned before the park was established. However, for most Urak Lawoi, land titles are irrelevant and most have sold their land to outside capitalists. Today, over 85 percent of the Urak Lawoi do not own land and almost all live on somebody else's property.

The lack of clarity regarding the meaning and rights of ownership has resulted in land disputes between local people and the park, as well as among private land owners. With recent tourism development in the area, some people have become interested in claiming land that they believe previously belonged to their families, many intending to build tourist accommodations and earn cash income. Within the past few years, rudimentary A-frame bungalows have been built all over Lipe. Currently an outside investor is planning for a larger scale of tourist accommodation on his land which is a part of the main village. Both the investor and the park, separately, are considering organized resettlement projects for the Urak Lawoi.

Park management in the Adang Archipelago is further complicated by heavy commercial fisheries. Due to insufficient patrol of park waters and the importance of the national fishing industry, large-scale commercial fishing boats are common in the area. Trawlers and light-luring boats, in particular, have been blamed by local fishers for the loss of their fish traps and the depletion of local marine life. For several decades, the Urak Lawoi fishers themselves have contributed as laborers in a patron-client relationship with outside fishery entrepreneurs. Some of the introduced fishing methods, including dynamite fishing, were destructive to the corals and forbidden.

Today, 3 out of the 4 main local fishing entrepreneur groups are Urak Lawoi, whose primary fishing methods include hook and line and trap fishing. Superficially, these methods may create an impression of traditional or small-scale fishery. However, the fishing fleet has combined traditional fishing gear with the modern technologies to optimize the efficiency of sea harvesting, and the fleets have been well-organized in a manner similar to that of large-scale industrial fishing.

With increasing contacts with outsiders, integration into global market economies through tourism and fishery, and modernization, the local ways of coastal and marine resource use have changed rapidly. Despite the park status, resource uses in the archipelago are becoming more competitive and conflicting, resulting in situations unfavorable for the sustainability of either healthy ecosystems or the local culture. To prevent further resource degradation and cultural disintegration while allowing for sustainable development, the local people, the park, other governmental agencies, and business owners would need to collaborate in managing the local natural and cultural resources. Under the new park supervision, there have been initiatives to empower the Urak Lawoi by supporting self governance, by offering them education and training on environmentally conscious professions, and by developing a future provincial tourism project that would rest upon and link the cultural assets of the sea-dwelling Urak Lawoi and the indigenous mountain-dwelling Sakai people on the mainland.