Community-Based River Conservation in the Ngao River Basin: Inland Fisheries for Food Security, Self-determination, and New Futures of Conservation in Thailand

This thesis explores the emergence and implications of community-based river conservation programs that effectively manage inland fisheries by ethnic minority Karen communities in the Ngao River basin in Northern Thailand. By remotely collaborating with a local research assistant, the study generated qualitative data through group and individual interviews with 40 community members and two key informants, participant observation, and community mapping exercises. I draw on frameworks such as rooted networks and collectives to consider the role of various actors and materialities in determining effective conservation that contributes to community needs. The study found that the interplay of communities' networked relations centred the role of formalized river conservation in contributing to food security and self-determination in the face of a state-initiated exclusionary protected area. Shifting discourse from forests to rivers can contribute to an ontological redefinition of conservation in Thailand that counters longstanding marginalization of the Karen from resource governance arrangements.