Scale, Knowledge and Space: Spatial Organization of Environmental Knowledge in Northern Thailand

The task of incorporating traditional knowledge into the scientific management and conservation of the world’s forests is becoming increasingly important. 2 Internationally, organizations and governments have recognized that forests provide multiple goods and services to both local communities and to the global commons. Managing forests for their multiple attributes thus requires cooperation across scale; between national forestry departments and local communities. 3 There remains significant debate regarding the role of local people in state-led forest management and the importance of traditional knowledge to the goals of sustainable forest management and conservation (Berkes and Folke, 2002; Brown, 2002; Chatty and Colchester, 2002; Terborgh, 2002). However, state-led conservation of increasingly inhabited forest combined with the political economic reality of shrinking budgets and growing civil society indicates an increasing trend towards decentralization and dictates a continued effort to integrate traditional and scientific management and knowledge (Enters and Durst, 2000; FAO, 2003). Forest management would benefit from a greater integration of stakeholder interests, knowledge, and management institutions. Indeed, FAO identifies such integration as the necessary institutional environment for managing forests sustainably (FAO, 2003). Unfortunately, conflicts throughout tropical forests attest to a continued and growing tension and little cooperation among interests across scale. Local resource-use appears to be in conflict with regional, national, and international conservation demands. Many of these conflicts occur in and around scientifically managed protected areas that have demonstrated a strong commitment to privileging western scientific knowledge over local knowledge. “The assumption has always been that wildlife conservation is the prerogative of naturalists, trained ecologists and foresters, and