โฉนดชุมชน Chanot Chumchon Form of Community Ownership

I understood most of the words in the videotape I took (I'll get it up eventually, still waiting on advice on the translation). I didn't necessarily understand how they all fit together. Then there were words I didn't understand. A couple were easy to look up, but โฉนดชุมชน didn't quite make sense. I understood ชุมชน (choomchorn)** or community (though that word has a variety of meanings in English, but it's a word used often here to describe the collective spirit and physical place of the villages my NGO* is associated with.)

โฉนด is defined by thai2enlish.com as

title deed ; title deed to a piece of land

Try to think of a word to use to put those two together. As I discussed this with Swe yesterday over strawberry smoothies, the idea that seemed closest to something that we know in the US was a condo association, where people own the individual condos privately, but own the building, grounds, swimming pool, etc. collectively. Everyone has to agree on some sort of organizational fee to pay for the collectively owned parts of the property. They also have to agree on maintenance and new developments they might want to build.

Well, today, Mi (photoshopped a bit in the pictures) was in the office and I showed him the video and the words I was having trouble with.
He started drawing and writing to explain what chanot chumchon means. And it is something like a condo bylaws/agreement. So let me try to flesh out what I understood him to be saying. (That means, take everything you read next with a grain of salt.)

He started drawing a picture. And then he said a Chanot ChumChon needs five things:

1. Land - they need a piece of land for a group of families I asked how many but it seems to be flexible. He drew 11 on the picture, but said it could be from about 50 to 100 families. Smaller ones exist. So each family has rights over its own piece of land but there are also community rights over the whole larger piece.

2. There's a committee which has the responsibility to look after the everything. The members are representatives of all the farmers who maintain the agreement of the farmers, and are representatives to deal with the government. They develop the plan for what the Group is going to plant, for things like irrigation, and other communal needs. If there is a bigger Group, there might be three committees, a main committee, a management committee, etc. Committees have five to ten people.

3. ระเบียบ this translates as rules, order, regulation. If we use the condo association analogy, it would be something like the by-laws that govern how decisions are made and the structure of the organization.


4. A fund. The Chum Chon needs money to take care of the communal expenses. The group gets money through

• ลงขัน Member contributions - I just wrote about this term at the end of the post on Tricky Translations.
• ทอดผ้าป่า Another tricky term. It literally means "fried clothes forest." (Besides 'fry' ทอด can mean to cast or drop which is the meaning here, as in leaving cloth in the woods. People often make offerings of material, especially for monks' robes.) Swe helped explain it to me today. If a wat (temple) wants to build a new addition. They might send out letters to everyone asking for donations of any size. And you would get your name somewhere at the new structure depending on how much you gave. So this category is for fundraising activities and I suspect it's not too different from fundraisers that any US house of worship or school might have including things like cookie sales and raffles. The ChumChon would do Thai versions of these sorts of money raising activities.
• Money from local or federal government funds (such as the land bank) for specific projects. This might be support for schools and a health clinic as well as information on various agricultural techniques.

The money is used for communal improvements - irrigation systems, water and sewer, etc.


5. Government support - Like any local community, the Chum Chon needs assistance for schools, health care (small government health clinics), and ways to assist when prices drop below a basic price. Of course, public schools and public health clinics are things people in local communities in the US expect from government too. And US farmers are also protected by various price support programs.


So that's a general overview of โฉนดชุมชน Chanot Chumchon. Don't rely on this too heavily, but it should give you a reasonable head start on understanding this concept.

*I've explained this numerous times on the blog, but I realize there may be people who don't know this acronym who haven't been here before. And I don't like documents full of acronyms. It stands for Non-Governmental Organization and would be called a non-profit in the United States.

**Trying to write out Thai words in western script is tricky. There are different standard phonetics systems, but they only are helpful if you understand the sounds each letter is supposed to represent. So I've tried to make it as close to what would make phonetic sense to a US English speaker. Choom rhymes with 'room.' Chon rhymes something between 'tone' and 'torn.' Of course it also depends on who's speaking. In the tape, the speaker says something that sounds like choomachon.

Cuddy Family Midtown Park - Almost Ready

To get to the Peter's Sushi fire site the other day, I ran through the new Cuddy Family Midtown Park (CFMP). I say 'new' because although it's been there a few years, with a path and an amphitheater, now the speed skating rink is in, there's a couple of small lakes (ponds?), and it looks like lawn has been seeded. There's also an asphalt path that wanders around the edges of the park.
The northwest end - which you can get to from the Loussac Library parking lot was full of poppies this week.

There's a small amphitheater near the west entrance. It's been there a while and is already starting to look uncared for. There's a lot of potential for outdoor concerts and even some theater. But this is no Greek amphitheater.

Here's the west entrance at the end of 40th. Never heard of 40th? This is just south of 36th and C. Or just north of Tudor and C. The previous post puts this into a larger context.

This map shows you where the pictures were take from and the direction I was shooting. Google Earth is a little behind the times as you can see from the pictures. But you can also see the scrubby trees that were cleared to make this park. If I understand the function of bogs right, we've traded a natural water filter for lawns that will probably be fertilized and maybe pesticided. Or maybe the parks people have gone organic.

Here's a veiw looking toward Loussac Library not far from the east entrance off of Denali. This is off that new out of the way road into the Loussac parking lot. You can see the road barely in the upper right of the picture.


And here's a view of the tiny lakes, looking west from near the east entrance.



Finally, a panorama from the south side of the park near the back of Lowe's (on Tudor). This is three different pictures spliced together, so the right side is basically looking north and the left side more to the west.

This isn't one of those typical Anchorage parks where they chopped down a bunch of trees to add some playground equipment or sport fields. As I recall, uncertainly, this had some stunted bog spruce. There's still some of that green on the Google Earth map It looks like its going to be rolling lumps of lawn. Maybe they'll even put some trees back in. It's in a residential-free island surrounded by Tudor, C St., Denali, and 36th. So it's not a neighborhood park.

The speed skating rink will probably attract a certain crowd. There really aren't too many places to sit and watch the skaters - a few small benches. Sitting on the grass knolls might be good, but they'll be under snow and ice when there are skaters.

And there isn't a lot of parking. Well, there's Loussac's parking lot, but it's pretty full most of the winter. There's room for some cars down on the park end if there aren't too many people using the park.

Well, it's just in the beginning stages, so let's see what other amenities come in - picnic benches, covered table areas, seating near the rink, etc. And some trees maybe. It does look more like a Lower 48 Park than any other one I can think of. The water is artificial lakes, the lawn areas were sculpted, and the natural vegetation was nearly completely cleared out (except for the edges of the Loussac parking lot) and replaced by...well we'll have to see.

Land Reform Meeting Chiang Mai Day 2

The meeting continued today. Here's my boss presenting.
At breaks I talked to different people about the usefulness of the two days. This gentleman is working on a group trying to start up a foundation to help farmers. For him it was a chance to meet a lot of people with the same interests.
This man is Karen nationality and he said the usefulness was in understanding the necessity of learning new ways to do things. The old ways will no longer work. But we also talked about Alaska Natives and how they face many of the same problems that the Thai hill tribes (Karen are often put in that category) face. Loss of language, loss of traditional ways of living off the land, others coming into their world and forcing changes, and general loss of their culture and way of life.

My foot is much better today. It was still a little bigger than the right foot, but I managed to get it into a shoe (normally I wear sandals) and by mid morning I was walking almost normally, but I'm sure it will be a little more time (hopefully days, not weeks) before it's normal again. But the benefits of the massage were very clear when I was riding my bike up hill. I felt really loose and comfortable. I know that was the massage.

Land Reform Meeting Chiang Mai

When I was leaving the land reform meeting this afternoon, Pet said, "I told you the meetings were a waste of your time." The meeting was tedious, but not a waste. I don't quite know what was all going on. But being there at all, gave me lots of leads for questions to ask, though there isn't much time left. Farmers were there from the three different villages I've been to, so presumably from all the others as well.

The Thai word for information was said over and over and over again. But essentially, my understanding was like the Thai translation in the previous post. I knew a lot of the words, but not quite how they connected. Today was the time for the farmers to talk about their issue and the various organizations supporting the farmers also contributed.


The man on the left is the villager whose house I stayed at when I first went out to a village. The man on the left was the main village speaker at the land reform confrontation in Lamphun.



Anyone recognize this speaker? He was the man at the Fire Break Ceremony who taught us how to say hello in Karen.


The meeting was in the Best Western Hotel, so in a sense, I felt like I wasn't quite in Thai territory any more, though it was still Thai, especially the flower arrangments and the food. We were on the top floor and so I got some views of places I've been in, but never seen from above. And it was pretty clear so the mountains were very visible too.


I left a little before 5pm. It wasn't a waste of time. I have a list of questions, plus I got to connect with people I'd met before. DeLak and Kaew got to see the photos and videos I took in their villages. And some Alaska pictures. But Pet was right - the meetings could be much livlier and have a lot more participation. (Though there was a lot of opportunities to speak, there were also talking heads.) My foot was better than it had been during the night and at the airport, but I thought it was time (since there are only two days left) to get a foot massage at Wat Umong, which I pass everytday. On the way back from the hotel (only about a quarter of a mile past our office, I ran into these cows, something that has never happened before. The massage, I was told, was the best in Chiang Mai. So maybe the could fix my foot.
I told her in detail about my foot. She immediately attacked my foot and I was in great pain. This was either going to cure me or leave me permantly limping.

The right foot also hurt as did various other places on my body. When it was over she asked how it was and I could walk much easier. But a few hours later is was probably a mistake. My foot is now noticeably swollen, though I'm walking slowly, but better than before.

I'm discovering how important my feet are. And sleep too, I'll add the links in the morning.

Fire Break Ceremony 5 - Saying Hello in a Karen Language

Most, if not all, of the people at the ceremony could speak Thai so I got to talk pretty easily to a number of people. But Karen is their first language - well one of the Karen languages, I'm not sure which one. Here is our first Karen language lesson - it's a short 19 second video.




Wikipedia doesn't have much about this language:

The Karen languages are members of the Tibeto-Burman group of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The three main branches are Sgaw, Pwo, and Pa'o; they are not considered to be mutually intelligible (Lewis 1984). Karenni (also known Kayah or Red Karen) and Kayan (also known as Padaung) are related to the Sgaw branch. They are almost unique among the Tibeto-Burman languages in having a Subject Verb Object word order; other than Karen and Bai, Tibeto-Burman languages feature a Subject Object Verb order [8]. This is likely due to influence from neighboring Mon and Tai languages (Matisoff 1991).

[Later: Another site says that Sqaw and Pwo are the only two that have a written language and these folks said they could write in their language. So that limits it down to those two. Someone in the office said their language was "Bakayaw" but that is in Thai.]

Land Reform in Northern Thailand

My job here is supposed to be about helping with management issues, but I do need to understand what the organization does to help out. Plus, one of my functions is to help with networking with related organizations. As part of that, I've been checking the internet for information on sustainable farming, land reform, etc. in Northern Thailand.

I've talked about land reform issues before, always with the disclaimer that I don't really understand very much about the context and details. The same disclaimer applies here.


As I got to work today, there was a large group of people in the compound, many villagers of a hill tribe group I didn't recognize. I was told they were Palong. (I'm having trouble finding non-tourist oriented websites that discuss the hill-tribes, this one seems relatively neutral.) Further questioning of people at the office revealed that a ruling on a land dispute from 2547 (it's now 2551, that that would have been 2004) was handed down this morning and these villagers were found to have violated law when they occupied the land around 2500. There was a meeting going on in the meeting room and I asked if I could listen in. It turned out that Mi - who sometimes uses the other desk in my office - was running the meeting. He invited me in, and later during a break said I could take pictures, but I pushed for him to ask the people in the room first before I did.

The talk was of how many rai (.4 acres) of land, money, number of families. It is so easy to slip into filling in the missing details with my own preconceptions, but I'm trying hard not to let that happen and focus on the objective things I know or what people tell me. Even then I have to double, even triple check to make sure I understood the Thai correctly.

Our brains naturally try to make sense of things and put them into context. My most immediately related brain cells clicked onto what I know about when American Indians' land was made available for sale. Outsiders could buy the land destroying the community and unity of the tribes. People were tempted with quick cash, and as some tribe members sold their land, the tribes soon became alienated from the land. Is that what was happening here? It sounded like they were talking about selling prices and that Mi was talking about the necessity of the group holding together. But maybe I was imagining all that. I'll try to talk to him after they end the meeting today.

Later: So before pushing the publish post button I went back out and asked more questions. The court found that they occupied the land illegally, but they will be able to stay on the land. They've been there over 40 years and there really is no place for them to go. Furthermore, the land belongs to the government, not to corporations or other individuals who are trying to claim ownership of the land. So, I asked, if they get to stay on the land, why are they appealing? Answer: So that they are not ruled to have violated the law. My informants are gone and so I can't ask the other questions I still have. I'm assuming this is in hopes of setting precedence for other land disputes, but I'm not sure.

In my networking internet search, I did find this report on land reform in Northern Thailand which matches the issues I wrote about earlier. Then I was trying to give some context to the land conflict issues and this report does that. Here's an excerpt:

Misappropriation of land in Baan Hong district
As the economy grew in the late 1980s and early 1990s, financiers began looking for secure long-term investments for their accumulating capital and found that buying up rural land areas was an ideal investment. Such land could be acquired cheaply, issued with title, with every likelihood in the economic climate of the times that it would swiftly rise in value. In Lamphun province, titles for extensive areas of land were issued during the height of the economic growth period in 1990-1993 without the knowledge of local communities who became aware of the alienation of their community lands only when fences started appearing in the fields.

The land conflict I witnessed before was in Lamphun and this sounds very much like that situation. (It turns out that it should sound familiar because it was written by two people - one Thai, one foreign - who worked here in the past. But no one here even knows this English report about their work exists. So, one thing it turns out I'm helping out with is putting together a set of articles in English that relate to what they are doing. A few people here can read these with difficulty, but if they have volunteers like me, they should get these to bring them up to speed a little faster.)

The entire 15,000 râi in Baan Hong District described above, that was previously held in common by local communities and that was supposed to be allocated to local people, is now titled under the names of non-resident companies and wealthy individuals from outside the community. Local farmers have vigorously challenged the legality of the title deeds. Villagers state there was no notice of intention to survey the area and issue title either posted in the village or announced over the village loudspeaker. Research into the title deeds shows that many were issued on the basis of incomplete survey information, sometimes under false names, and from non-existent or long dead sellers (in at least one case, the space for the name and address of the seller was simply left blank).
Thus, villagers in Baan Hong were prohibited from using their community land, around which fences were constructed in or around 1990. Seeing such fences and boundary markers appearing in the lands they had traditionally claimed for village use, people from Sritia village rose up in protest at the illegal transfer of this land to outsiders. A youth leader involved in the protests was shot and killed by unknown gunmen.

I realize that you could say, OK, that's one side of the story and it seems a little extreme. My sense is that in the past (and I did work in rural Thailand forty years ago so my sense isn't totally imaginary), poor farmers, particularly hill tribes, had no power whatsoever and if they got to the courts they were sure to lose. And today's decision was only partially in favor of the villagers and wasn't filed by people who were claiming to own their land. So things that happened until recently were pretty blatant because those in power never expected to be challenged. But local activists, supported by international NGOs have come onto the scene to help the victims.
My organization, the Northern Development Federation, is working with the farmers to secure the rights to the land. The people in the pictures above and in the Chiang Dao series of posts are the people whose rights to the land they farm - and in many cases for a couple of generations - are challenged.