Community Legal Empowerment for the Application of Ramsar Convention to the Lower Ing Basin Wetlands in Chiang Rai Province

Abstract

This research aims to study the registration process of Ramsar convention to the Lower Ing Basin wetlands, and to analyze the model for community legal empowerment in wetland management through a multilateral participation process. It is qualitative research with action research in seven communities in Khun Tan and Chiang Khong Districts in Chiang Rai province. Research tools are focus group discussions and interview guidelines with five key-informant groups who are stakeholders in the wetland registration process. Fourty key-informants are formal and informal community leaders, executives of local administration organizations, representatives of governmental agencies, civil society, and educational institutions. This research analyzed the content from the data categorization, information validation, and summary according to the objectives.

It found that 1) registration process of Ramsar convention for the lower Ing basin wetlands is in line with the procedure for applying for registration both nationally and internationally important wetlands. The study focused only provincial level, which is an important level of the registration process in order to gain an operational guideline from the provincial level for endorsing the registration. After endorsing, the office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning will be further considered 2) the model of community legal empowerment in wetland management needs to (1) enhancing stakeholder participation by dividing the roles and responsibilities of operative organizations, (2) legal capacity building should have a legal public space for every sector and people to exchange information and ideas, (3) on policy and legal reform, the suggestion is to revise some issues of laws on wetlands management in Thailand. It leads to legal measurement to protect Wetlands according to the community's way of life, and (4) information integration between local and multidisciplinary knowledge. Also, there has been collected information by Thai-ban research approach, and activities integrated local and scientific knowledge with academic support.