| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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Mind reforestation is a way of creating knowledge, understanding and consciousness in people of the community by relying on the participation process of government, private and NGO’s organization networks. E.g. creating of watershed dams, planting of more trees in the deforest areas. Including the use of local traditional rites in order to persuade the people to love forest thereby, increase the fertility rate of the forest to become a source of food, tourism site and create occupation for the people in the community under the law and rules of the local community. Eventually leads to the usage of forest resources equally for the benefits of everybody.
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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The operation of doing the proper thing in Kuang upper basin area, which is to reduce and stop the cutting down of trees and deforestation, and also increase the income of the population in the community in order to solve poverty problem. The mentioned process include the following.
5.1 Group of forest conservation and restoration Kuang upper basin area. They are involved in forest survey, patrols, plant more trees, prevent forest fire outbreak, take care of forest resources in the community, create a consciousness, stage, environmental camps in order to take care of natural resources and environment.
5.2 Loung Nuae municipality participation relates directly to the people in terms of operation with community leader and the people of the community, impacting on them knowledge and understanding required including financial budgets used in the organization of different activities in order to conserve and restore the forest resources.
5.3 Department of forestry, National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation are involved in the supporting of deforestation and smuggling of trees. Including knowledge transfer on how to conserve and restore the forest to the community and thereby extend the knowledge to other communities.
5.4 The people in Kuang upper basin area are involved in taking good care of the forest resources. Including co-operation with related agency in terms of practice. They also benefit from already conserved and restored forest resources. E.g. Natural food from the forest and water source and it leads to occupation availability.
5.5 NGO organizations and private sectors example: Coca Cola Thailand Public company Ltd. in the supporting of financial expenses and rendering of useful knowledge in the conserving and restoring of forest resources in Kuang upper basin area.
The activity operation according to the project, which is to allow the people benefit from this innovation in Kuang upper basin.
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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6.1 Strategy to push the project forward are determined by the participation of every sector related to the moving forward of the project which consist of 4 main strategy such as;
6.1.1 Strategy 1 Develop working participation with conservation network from information and evidence linked to forest deforestation in the area of Kuang upper basin. There are related networks who practice the operation of taking care, conserving of forest resources e.g. forestry department, army agencies, wildlife and plant conservation and local governments. Apart from these, there are some other private organizations such as Escort volunteers of village resources and NGO’s operated through integrated committee members of forest resources in Kuang upper basin area together with the use of information technology system in coordination process. E.g. Line and Facebook in order to serve as a work mechanism thereby leads to efficient fast practical practice since 1994 until date.
6.1.2 Strategy 2 The making of environment seminar in Kuang upper basin in order to transfer knowledge pertaining to the conservation and restoration of forest to new youth and children from one generation to another.
6.1.3 Strategy 3 Database creation of forest resources and water source in Kuang upper basin area, which is going to be efficiently useful in the management of forest resources according to the development plan of 2007.
6.1.4 Strategy 4: The implementation of village laws on matter pertaining to joint usage of forest resources allow everybody get equal accessibility to the use of forest resources.
6.2 Resources: the resources used in moving the operation forward so as to create a powerful force in helping the project become successful according to it’s specified objective are been divided into 4 sector
6.2.1 Personnel: human resources consist of 2 parts such as government personnel e.g. staff of Loung Nuae Municipality, department of forestry staffs and the people of Kuang upper basin area including private sector NGO and other religious leader in the area.
6.2.2 Budgets: budgets are from 2 sources. The budget of local governments, and donations from private sector e.g. upstream dam budget from Thailand cement company etc.
6.2.3 Materials and equipment: satellite data map and GPS were been used as the forest resource database showing the position of dams. Including the pinpoint of forest planted area and other valuable things in the area. Computers were been used to calculate the result of the data in order to efficiently arrange the data and make it useful in the management of area.
6.2.4 Local Intellects: local ritual rites are brought in to conserve and preserve trees in the forest. Forest life prolonging ceremony, water ceremonies for forest tress, merits to the weir spirit are all been utilized in the restoration process of conserving and preserving the forest so as the help solve poverty problem.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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7.1 The main participator in the operation of the project is Loung Nuae municipality. They took responsibility in the operational process together with the people and networks in of Kuang upper basin area on the conservation and restoration process through community stage. To enable them use it as a guideline in the operation of project. That is planning together, decide together, and learn together. Moreover, assess the projects together and correct the how to operate efficiently.
7.2 Operational sponsor groups: They are personnel from educational institution e.g. Chiangmai University, Private sectors organization, NGO including religious leaders all gave and helping hand in terms of material and equipment support used for project with some managerial knowledge, which will be need to in managing forest resources to those related so as to make the practice fruitful.
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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8.1 Starting from the inception of forest conservation and restoration process to help solve poverty problem in 1992. They set a goal of planting forest tress of 79 acre per year. Which is directly in accordance with the sustainable development goal (SDGs 13, 15).
8.2 It allow several job creation in the village. E.g. creek allocation groups, rearing of bee, community minimart groups. From the necessary fundamental data of department of community development in 1994 shows that most of the people in the community are below the standard of necessary fundamental data in terms of average family income of 14, 483 baht per person per year from the normal standard of 15, 000 per person per year. But, after the forest conservation and restoration process which create several job availability, it allow the average income per person to increase to a total of 83, 146 baht per person per year from the national standard of 30,000 per person per year in 2016. This shows that the conservation and restoration process of forest, which took place since 1992 until date positively increase the people standard of living. Most especially in terms of average income increase. This is in accordance with the sustainable development goal (SDGs 1, 2, 3).
8.3 It help gives birth to natural tourist attraction sites such as Pa Sak Ngam waterfall, natural forest cave water which become the tourist attraction site of the village and help create income for the people in the community. Survey research shows that the people of Pa Sak Ngam has and increase income from tourism.
8.4 The total amount of water in Mae Kuang Dam in 2016 increase to 110 million square meter. If compared to December 2015 it only has 30 million square meter.
8.5 There are 131 forest fire outbreaks, which occurs in Kuang upper basin area in 2016. If compared with 2015, which occurs 232 times, there is an explicit reduction of 43.53% in 101 times.
8.6 The survey of tree species and small living things in the forest of Kuang upper basin area done by Chaingmai University discover that the forest has champagne mushroom, which can only be found in fertile forests. This is an indication that the forest in Kuang upper basin has now regain restoration according to the conservation and restoration of forest in the area.
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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The villagers that engage in deforestation and smuggling of trees lack consciousness, they did not accept the project of restoring the forest, which is to help solve poverty problem at the first stage. We have to use a method of letting group and community leaders help make the people understand the important of creating a joint ideology. Change the way they think and take them on study exchange trips that allow them study how to conserve and restore forest resources and thereby extend it to other community. A community stage was been created in order to transfer knowledge to the people in the community hereby, paving a way for them to have the right attitude towards conserving and restoring of forest resources in order to allow the smooth operation of the project. Investors who engage on deforestation and smuggling of tress challenge the officers with huge problems by employing some members in the community to disrupt the work of the officers and reject the operation of the project. In terms of benefits allocation from forest resources, some villagers still did not trust each other, which eventually lead to conflicts. This was been solved by implementing village laws concerning joint usage forest resources. This allow everybody get equal access to the usage of forest resources. Operation problem in the area is still powered on the officer, if the officer of Loung Nuae and conscious villagers and other volunteers did not take care the of the forest resources in the area, by now it may have been overtaken by investors and other unwanted personalities. In order to prevent this, a joint memorandum was made in order to efficiently work together and have a meeting every month to explain the past months operations.
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