Learning From Environmental Defenders

AsianScientist (Jun. 28, 2025)

By Puja Bhattacharjee and Rachel Soon

When a baby is born in the Karen hill tribe, Thailand’s largest ethnic minority group, elders in the community cut the baby’s umbilical cord, place it in a bamboo container and hang it on a healthy fruit tree.

“This way, the baby’s and the tree’s souls are connected throughout their lives; no one is permitted to cut down that tree,” said Pirawan Wongnithisathaporn, a Karen environment program officer at the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP). Based in Chiang Mai, Thailand, the nonprofit AIPP promotes and defends indigenous peoples’ rights in the region. “We do not live against the rules of nature. This is why our lives are sustainable.”

The Karen are but one of many indigenous communities across the world that have historically nurtured the natural ecosystems they depend on for their sustenance. However, their views and rights have often been overlooked in regional and global environmental and climate planning, according to a 2019 report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), an independent coalition of 94 governments that aims to strengthen the science-policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystem conservation.

Yet indigenous knowledge can be invaluable not just for a community’s quality of life, but for broader conservation efforts and environmental governance, as the IPBES report adds. This point was further emphasized in a 2022 report in Biological Conservation, which noted that indigenous communities form detailed knowledge on ecological trends through their direct dependence on local ecosystems and the changes they observe, interpret and pass down generations. “Indigenous people are often better placed than scientists to provide detailed information on local biodiversity and environmental change,” the report quoted from an IPBES paper.

With about two-thirds of the world’s indigenous people living in Asia—according to the International Labour Organization— policymakers and environmental researchers in Asia are beginning to involve them in developing sustainable conservation solutions and inclusive climate policies, acknowledging the vital role they play in protecting the environment.

While such collaborations are already resulting in positive outcomes for local communities and ecosystems, many of them are still small and localized, said Wongnithisathaporn. “We want to see these efforts expand to a broader scale and gain legal support.” Asian Scientist Magazine presents some examples from the region.

Restoring The Water’s Bounty

In the Malaysian state of Sabah during the late 1980s to early 1990s, some villages noticed a sharp decline in fish populations due to destructive fishing practices such as blast or bomb fishing, where cheap homemade explosives—made with bottles of kerosene and fertilizer—were used to indiscriminately kill fish in large quantities.

The Kadazandusun, the largest indigenous collective of Sabah and a rice-farming agricultural community, responded to the crisis by reviving tagal—an indigenous knowledge system traditionally used to sustainably harvest fish from rivers. Under tagal, a stretch of river in need of protection is divided into three zones: red, green and yellow. Fishing is prohibited in red zones, allowed only during certain times in yellow zones and open at all times in green zones. An annual or biannual harvest takes place in yellow zones on dates determined by the related committee. The indigenous community, known for its pottery making skills using gray riverbank clay, worked with local village councils to implement tagal, with river management and monitoring handled by a committee of residents local to each protected river area.

The subsequent revival in river fish populations led to the Sabah Fisheries Department adopting the tagal system as a conservation strategy in 2003. Today, the tagal system is part of Sabah’s state inland fishery management, with 628 zones across 227 rivers officially registered as tagal by the Fisheries Department.

The results of the tagal system were evident to Edjilon Tongiak, committee chairman for the Sungai Pisapakan Dumpiring tagal, which produced 600 kilograms of fish in its 2024 yellow zone annual catch. “Our bountiful harvest would not have been possible without the cooperation of all committee members as well as the villagers,” Tongiak noted in a 2024 report.

Ranging The Warming Mountains

In a 2018 study, Kesang Wangchuk, a researcher with Bhutan’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, led a team to reach out to 100 senior indigenous yak herders in the Himalayas to better understand how the warming climate was impacting alpine rangelands and yaks. Through discussions with the herders, the researchers wanted to develop strategies that would reduce the impact of climate change on local livelihoods such as theirs.

Bhutan’s yak herding tribes such as the Bjobs and Brokpa comprise less than 5 percent of the country’s population. At 3,000 feet above sea level, yaks and sheep have historically provided the meat, dairy products, manure and hair that are key to these communities’ subsistence.

Based on decades of first-hand observation, the senior herders reported that increasing temperatures were causing alpine snow lines and vegetation to move higher up the mountains, forcing herders further afield to graze their animals. The herders also reported an increase in flash floods and landslides from more intense rainfall, a decline in yak milk production and an increase in livestock predators, such as tigers and snow leopards, near community settlements.

“The widespread awareness and perceptions of herders not only demonstrated their ability to view the changing climate holistically through various indicators, but also reflected their fears and concerns,” the study reported.

Recent efforts by Bhutan’s government to boost the resilience of alpine communities and rangelands against climate change are drawing on the knowledge and experience of herder communities. In 2019, the government established the Bhutan Yak Federation (BYF) to connect the numerous herder communities and cooperatives across the country’s highlands. Working with development agencies, BYF supports a combination of traditional and modern systems in yak husbandry and rangeland management, including controlled burning, rangeland co-management initiatives and skills training and support for diversified livestock products.

In a 2024 review of challenges faced by the yak herders of Bhutan, Chimi Wangmo, a researcher at the Center for Bhutan Studies, and colleagues noted that BYF consisted of 1,067 yak herding households across the country. “Recognizing that herders nationwide face similar drivers of change, including socioeconomic factors and the impacts of climate change, BYF emphasizes the need for collective and united action among yak herders and various stakeholders involved in highland research and development,” said the researchers.

Forest Protection Through 3D Mapping

Within Eastern Cambodia, the boundaries of the Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary (KSWS) enclose nearly 3,000 km. of mixed tropical forest, providing a home for a documented 959 plant, fungi and animal species. There, indigenous groups such as the Bunong have long lived with the forest in mutual support. In the face of climate change and deforestation, the Bunong today are also working with local and international organizations in broader conservation initiatives, ranging from forest patrols to advocacy for carbon financing.

In August 2024, more than 30 residents and leaders of Putrom village, a Bunong community, participated in a pilot 3D mapping exercise for sustainable landscape and forest management within KSWS. The exercise was organized by SERVIR SEA, a joint partnership between the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center. SERVIR SEA uses publicly available satellite imagery and geospatial technologies to address climate change challenges in the region.

During the workshop, the participants worked with technical experts to produce a multi-colored 3D model of Putrom, showing its high-and-low contours and a clearer view of land use patterns. The exercise was followed by group discussions on land use planning, which helped the participants understand which land portions were better suited to agriculture or conservation.

“[The] exercise transformed my understanding of our landscape. It gave me a more detailed view of areas, which is crucial for planning our conservation efforts. With this new knowledge, I feel more empowered to make decisions and advocate for our community’s needs,” said Yoeun Sasvith, a workshop participant, in a post-event report by SERVIR SEA. Chinaporn Meechaiya, SERVIR SEA lead for gender equality and social inclusion, added in the same report that conducting 3D mapping exercises with indigenous communities enhances understanding of local landscapes and amplifies marginalized groups’ voices. Other regional organizations have begun to engage with SERVIR SEA for similar exercises.

Changing Perceptions

A 2024 AIPP report which reviewed the national climate policies of 10 South and Southeast Asian countries noted that policies that incorporate the rights, roles and knowledge of indigenous peoples lead to their better participation in policymaking.

Based on these insights, the report recommended that over the next two years, countries enhance the capacity of local governments and relevant actors to ensure that the rights of indigenous communities are respected in practice. It also asked for the establishment of mechanisms through which indigenous men, women, youth and persons with disabilities can actively participate in environmental and climate policy processes, and have access to the necessary information and resources to do so.

Similar points were reiterated at the recently concluded 29th edition of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in Baku, Azerbaijan. The Baku Workplan, which emerged from the meeting, underscored the leadership of indigenous peoples and local communities in addressing the climate crisis.

Back in Thailand, the conservation efforts of the Hin Lad Nai, a Karen community within the Khun Chae National Park, are now gaining international recognition. In the wake of severe deforestation in the 1980s, a revival of rotational farming systems traditionally practiced by the Hin Lad Nai are now known to help protect soil health and sequester carbon, with an estimated 80 percent of previously denuded forest land in Khun Chae restored over the last three decades.

A 2023 report published by global nonprofit Food Tank, highlighted a study on the community’s carbon footprint, conducted in partnership with the Hin Lad Nai, Thai researcher Prayong Doklamyai and Oxfam International. Their study showed that while rotational farming releases about 480 tons of carbon per year through controlled burning—a part of rotational farming—the Hin Lad Nai’s regenerative fallow system stores 17,000 tons in the same time period.

“The [western] discourse on rotational farming is that it is the cause of deforestation. But Hin Lad Nai has proved through scientific research that rotational farming is not causing climate change, but the opposite,” said Karen researcher Prasert Trakansuphakon in the Food Tank report.

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This article was first published in the print version of Asian Scientist Magazine, January 2025.

Design: Ajun Chua / Asian Scientist Magazine

Copyright: Asian Scientist Magazine.

Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.