Community-Based Conservation of the Ngao River in Thailand: A Networked Story of Success

Abstract In the Ngao River basin of Northern Thailand, over 50 ethnic Karen communities practice successful riverine community-based conservation (CBC) programs. While institutional approaches provide insights for conservation successes, critical approaches are needed to understand the context that partially determines communities’ actions. Thus, drawing on political ecology and using a rooted networks framework to investigate the introduction and management of these programs, the first author, a North America-based researcher, remotely collaborated with the second, a local community researcher, to conduct qualitative fieldwork to understand the conditions and connections that shape and constrain communities. We found that networked relations with outsiders threatened food security and self-determination, and enabled opportunities to respond to these threats through river conservation. “Rooted” relations with the environment allowed communities to recognize the positive impacts of conservation. Understanding situated and entangled relationships within complex networks enables opportunities to support CBC programs that meet conservation and development goals.