“It’s Our River, It’s Our Life”:

The Impacts and Importance of Karen Indigenous People and their Culture on the

Environment

Honors Thesis

Corrina Voytek

Anthropology Department

Advisor: Dr. Ben Fitzhugh

June 2024
Acknowledgements

I would like to use this space to thank all of the people who helped and supported me

throughout this year-long process. I’ve never attempted research at this scale before and without

Firstly, I would like to thank my mentor Ben Fitzhugh for his endless support and guidance. A

research project this large is something I’ve never attempted before, so having him through each

step of the process was infinitely helpful.

I also want to thank the many people who helped and advised me throughout my research

process, including Celia Lowe, for her Thai expertise and connections; Dominique Alhambra and

Gabbie Mangaser, for their kindness and aid while conducting my Burke research; and my

mother Phanyada Voytek, for her constant enthusiasm and translation help.

Lastly, I would like to thank my interviewees and contacts in Thailand who made time for my

project despite their busy schedules and far distance – thank you May, Prasert Trakansuphakon,

Johnson, the DCCE, Pa Aoi, Pinkaew Laungaramsri, Fern, Prasit Leepreecha, and Mr. Montip.

Abstract

The last few decades have marked an ongoing struggle between the highland Indigenous

groups of Northern Thailand and the Thai government over the settlement and use of lands

located inside of protected national parks. According to the Thai government, these native

groups, including the Karen people, use practices that are harmful to the local environment and

amplify climate change's effects. However, many others, including academics and Karen

activists, argue that Indigenous knowledge and practices are in fact more beneficial to the

environment than simply leaving nature alone. This paper examines the validity of these

assertions by exploring how the Karen group interacts with the environment through their culture
and what effect this has on environmental factors such as climate change and biodiversity.

Findings from literary research, artifact observation at the Burke Museum, and interviews with

various experts with experience involving these land rights issues suggest that Karen people’s

culture is in fact what informs their respect for their local environment and the reason why their

environmental practices, such as rotational agriculture, usage of natural materials for clothes and

tools, and their general treatment of the natural world are mutually beneficial to both Karen

people and the environment. My research also suggests that there is immense value in protecting

Karen culture both within their communities and from the threats of the Thai government and its

dominant culture. By better understanding and appreciating this knowledge that Karen and

Indigenous peoples as a whole have based on years of experience on their native land, we will be

able to understand the importance of protecting Native peoples’ right to their lands for both the

good of the environment and those living within it.

Introduction & Problem Statement

Human culture and the environment are not separate entities. This way of thinking is not

only incorrect, but harmful to both parties. By believing that people are on the outside of nature,

only able to misuse or destroy it, it causes what has always been a mutually beneficial

relationship to not be able to happen. But even this phrase ignores the fact that humans are just

one piece of the Earth’s natural ecosystem and have their place within this system. This place has

been forgotten or abused by many cultures, but those with strong ties to traditional knowledge

and centuries of experience with the local environment, often being Indigenous cultures,

continue practices that not only avoid harming their local environment but actually benefit it.
 One such group is the Karen, an Indigenous group native to the Thai-Myanmar border

who are part of the highland or hill tribes of the region. In the past, many lived in eastern Burma

(now known as Myanmar), but colonization and frequent attacks by the Myanmar government

forced them to flee to Thailand, where large groups now reside in places like refugee camps on

the Thai-Myanmar border and on various areas of land deemed Thai protected lands, including

national parks. Here, they actively interact with their land, maintaining their reciprocal

relationship with it and engaging in traditional practices such as rotational agriculture and

slash-and-burn techniques. However, the Thai government, fearful of the looming threat of

climate change (or perhaps wanting to control its country’s Indigenous population), has spent the

last 20 years repeatedly evicting the Karen from their native lands, attempting to resettle them

out of the highlands despite the Karen returning in protest. The Thai government justified these

evictions by blaming the Karen population for environmental degradation because of their

environmental activities and practices and should, therefore, not be allowed to live on Thai

federally protected lands. These actions, in addition to the continued pressure and aggression

from the Myanmar military, have negatively impacted Karen people’s connection to their culture.

I created my project in response to the initial research I’d done about the Karen people

and their struggles. Even though I am Thai and have visited Thailand many times, this was the

first time I had heard of these issues, which I believe is a massive problem. Awareness needs to

be spread about Indigenous groups like this that are being hurt by the very movements their

actions are benefitting. This topic also correlated with my studies through my dual Anthropology

and Environmental Studies programs.

While my project focuses on this specific case and issue of the Karen people, it is

representative of the larger problem of environmental preservation at the expense of Native

peoples – colonists and those in power have often seen the natural world as separate from human

interactions, erasing the Indigenous presence in these spaces in an effort to protect a fantasy of

“untouched wilderness” and, more recently, in misguided attempts to improve environmental

sustainability.

My research has a few different purposes. Firstly, it aims to spread awareness and

understanding of the challenges the Karen are facing in Thailand to those who might not be

aware of these injustices. The relationship and dynamic between the Karen people, the Thai and

Myanmar governments, the environment, and other Thai citizens is an incredibly complex one,

but it must be understood in order for change to occur. I hope that my paper will equip a new

group of people with the information they need to improve the lives of the Karen people.

Secondly, it addresses and explores the misconceptions many have regarding human, and

especially Indigenous, interaction with the environment. While I have often heard it said that the

key to environmental restoration is limiting interaction between us and our environment (or even

limiting the human population altogether), this way of thinking pits our species’ survival against

the survival of the earth. Instead, I hope to illuminate how the key to protecting the environment

could be the opposite of this notion – that protecting Native peoples’ right to use their land

without restriction could actually be more beneficial to the planet than controlling their freedom.

Research Questions

I seek to answer a couple of questions over the course of my research and this

paper. Firstly, I examine how the Karen people currently interact with their environment through

their cultural practices. Understanding clearly what practices are being used will make it easier to

determine their relationship with local ecosystems. Secondly, I explore how these interactions
affect their environment, both on a small- and large-scale. These impacts can be greatly

misunderstood from an outside perspective, so my work seeks to bring clarity to practices which

non-Karen people aren’t familiar with. Thirdly, I look at some of the many ways that Karen

people are taking action right now to affect change and spread awareness to the Thai government

and the rest of the world on their cultural practices and perspectives. And finally, I try to answer

if protecting Karen people’s land sovereignty might be linked to the improvement of the current

state of Thailand’s environmental degradation and if, by connection, Indigenous rights and land

sovereignty might be part of the solution to the issue of climate change.

Literature Review

There is a large amount of rich literature that already exists exploring the major topics of

my research. I have chosen to include some information on a few of the most important concepts

to provide a baseline of information from which my research will build from.

One prevalent concept within environmentalist spheres is wilderness – lands untouched

by humans, instead existing in their “natural” state. According to the US Wilderness Act of 1964,

it is defined as “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man,

where man himself is a visitor who does not remain”. This concept is an inspiration, fantasy, and

goal for many of those with an interest in environmental preservation. However, these people

often do not stop to consider the negative effects of this theory. Therefore, my research will

instead be looking at the opposite of the wilderness theory. William Cronon explores this in 2003

in the chapter titled “The View from Walden” in his book Changes in the Land: Indians,

Colonists, and the Ecology of New England, where he dismantles concepts of wilderness and

romanticization of “pristine” natural areas, especially as these ideas are used to argue for
conservation. He explains in reaction to the notion that humans are fundamentally separate from

nature that:

All human groups consciously change their environments to some extent – one might

even argue that this, in combination with language, is the crucial trait distinguishing

people from other animals – and the best measure of a culture's ecological stability may

well be how successfully its environmental changes maintain its ability to reproduce itself

(pg. 13).

This shows how humans naturally interact with and change their surrounding environment and

that such engagement is not a direct indicator of environmental degradation.

While the belief of untouched wilderness originated in the West, it spread to Eastern

countries, including Thailand, as the United States influenced environmental practices. This

occurred both indirectly through cultural mingling and modernization after World War II and

directly through environmental advising, such as George Cornelius Ruhle’s 1964 book

“Advisory Report on a National Park System for Thailand,” where he reports that “few [Thai]

know that wilderness is a fragile quality, only too easily dissipated,” as well as the importance of

“unspoiled nature.” This report and its beliefs about wilderness as fragile and unspoiled led to the

creation of Thai park management, showing how Thai federal workers’ actions of forcefully

resettling the Karen from their native lands stemmed from American theories of wilderness.

Another key concept from which my research expands upon is that of regenerative

agriculture, which is a broad term describing the various agricultural methods that not only

sustains and maintains the resources that exist within the environment, but improves the overall

health of the ecosystem, especially as related to biodiversity and soil health and nutrients.

According to , the concept behind it is that “by looking to nature for inspiration to problems in
production, a regenerative agriculture could: improve the quality of life of farming families and

their communities, safeguard production from externalities…, and repair the damage

conventional agriculture had caused to the natural resources it depended on”