Thailand

To be born and raised and, in time, to die on the sea; to live out one’s seamless days together with one’s family, wandering the turquoise waters of the Andaman Sea in a hand-built boat and feeling suffocated by contact with land or civilization—this is the heritage of the Moken. It is an easily romanticized way of life that has captivated the land-locked souls of the Western world since the Moken were introduced to us by anthropologist Pierre Ivanoff in 1957.

Maintaining cultural identity is hard enough for indigenous peoples in countries that are politically stable, but the problems are vastly more difficult when war and persecution push indigenous people into refugee camps across a bor

In many parts of Asia, parks—including sanctuaries, totally protected areas, and heritage sites—are found within indigenous peoples’ traditional territories.

The Pa-O are one of the ethnic minorities of Burma. They live primarily in the Taunggyi area of southwestern Shan State. A smaller number live in the Thaton area of Mon State in Lower Burma.

Upland minority people in Thailand -- the `hilltribes' -- have traditionally lived on the edges of Thai society. Despite the volume of information being collected about tribal people, the demographic characteristics of these various upland minority groups remain largely unknown because existing data are both inaccessible and inaccurate. While the nine hilltribes of upper northern Thailand are a diverse group, both ethnically and culturally, they share a common history of marginalization. 40 to 60 percent are denied citizenship rights even though they were born in Thailand.

Nan province is in the upper north of Thailand on the border with Laos and is home to large populations of tribal peoples.

At the heart of the worldwide indigenous movement is a serious and complex problem of labeling. A casual review of publications addressing indigenous issues reveals that native and non-native advocates of the `indigenous' cause define `indigenous' in widely varying ways. These definitions and overarching theories include:

-- `Indigenous' Peoples are the original stewards of the environment, holding the land of their ancestors in trust for future generations.

The standard social concern surrounding large dams and their associated reservoirs is the displacement and resettlement associated with these large infrastructure schemes.

Over a 12-month period, the Thailand Chapter of Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), the world's largest travel organization, commissioned fact-finding missions with three main objectives: to ascertain the opinions of international experts concerning various collaborations between northern Thailand's cultural minorities and the tourism industry; to evaluate the current situation in northern Thailand regarding the mountain peoples' involvement in tourism-related activities; and to produce a booklet titled Guidelines for Interaction between the Tourism Industry and Northern Thailand's Moun

"Off-the-beaten-track" is, ironically, a very well-beaten path taken over the centuries by colonists, anthropologists, missionaries, developers, international aid agencies and World Bankers, environmentalists, and the ever-expanding tourism industry. This industry, is now a sundry crew of tourists, thrill-seekers, adventurers, bird and whale watchers, sports enthusiasts, cruise ships the size of cities, builders of airports, hotels and global communication systems, traveling scientists and academics, well-intentioned social justice activists, and millions of others.

More than four million women and girls are trafficked into the sex industry annually, according to the United Nations.

The following is a preliminary draft of the set of guidelines for tourists considering visiting the villages of northern Thailand's mountain peoples (often referred to as hill tribes).

In 1994, women of Burma's ethnic minority groups continue to be systematically abused by the regime's military. Teenaged girls of the Rohingya Moslem nationality are being taken from their families and bought to government army bases for long-term "training programs." The Rohingyas fear that this is a disguise for sexual slavery, which has been a constant feature of the army's occupation of the Moslem area of western Burma. Cross border trade in indigenous women to Thailand and China for forced prostitution has continued, often exploiting very young girls.

Ten years after Samine Sophat arrived in the United States as a war refugee, her daughter planned to get married. Following the Cambodian custom, the groom offered a monetary gift that Mrs. Sophat could have retained as mother's milk money, in recognition of the work of bringing children to adulthood. As a widow and a remarried woman, Mrs. Sophat had struggled against great odds to ensure her children's survival in the 1970s war, starvation and flight to the United States. But she confided, "I couldn't bring myself to keep the money.

For some time now land use planners have been using sketch mapping and participatory rural appraisal as tools for land use planning, community development planning, and resolving land use conflicts with indigenous communities in Asia.

On October 3, 1994, over two thousand NGOs from 44 countries issued the Manibeli Declaration calling for a moratorium on World Bank funding of large dam projects.

CANADA

The inhabitants of the small villages of Thailand's mangrove swamps, who have fished for thousands of years, have recently initiated several efforts to restore their environment and safeguard their fish supply. However, since the early 1970s a seemingly innocuous creature - the black tiger prawn - has threatened their way of life.

As the prawn industry has expanded through Asia and Latin America,d it has destroyed large tracts of mangrove forests, which are ideal sites for prawn farms.