The Thailand-Cambodia border conflict cost Kui communities their harvests, deepened their debts, and left unexploded shells buried in their fields. Its quieter damage, to a decade of work reconnecting an indigenous people that modern borders had long divided, may take far longer to repair.
A Karen community in Chiang Mai’s Omkoi district spent seven years challenging a coal mine approved without their knowledge, and won a court order freezing it. The final ruling is still pending.
For generations, a divorced Hmong woman lost not just her marriage but her place in her clan. A women’s network has been reviving an ancient ritual to give it back.
Thailand is forming a fourth committee to resolve a longstanding Karen land dispute – this time with an ethnic rights law previous panels lacked.
Alemi Saechin spent ten years proving she was Thai before she could vote. Now she and other first-time ethnic minority voters across Thailand are discovering that gaining citizenship doesn’t mean gaining full democratic inclusion.
The Urak Lawoi of Thailand’s Koh Lipe once produced virtually no waste. Now their community manages a daily logistics operation – sorting, loading, and barging ten tonnes of mostly tourist rubbish to a mainland landfill.
For generations, Lahu Christians baptised in the Kok River. This year, the ritual stopped – arsenic contamination linked to Myanmar mines has made the water too dangerous to touch. Now fishing incomes are gone, tourism has collapsed, and water alternatives are dwindling.
The Thailand-Cambodia border conflict cost Kui communities their harvests, deepened their debts, and left unexploded shells buried in their fields. Its quieter damage, to a decade of work reconnecting an indigenous people that modern borders had long divided, may take far longer to repair.
A Karen community in Chiang Mai’s Omkoi district spent seven years challenging a coal mine approved without their knowledge, and won a court order freezing it. The final ruling is still pending.
For generations, a divorced Hmong woman lost not just her marriage but her place in her clan. A women’s network has been reviving an ancient ritual to give it back.
Thailand is forming a fourth committee to resolve a longstanding Karen land dispute – this time with an ethnic rights law previous panels lacked.
Alemi Saechin spent ten years proving she was Thai before she could vote. Now she and other first-time ethnic minority voters across Thailand are discovering that gaining citizenship doesn’t mean gaining full democratic inclusion.
The Urak Lawoi of Thailand’s Koh Lipe once produced virtually no waste. Now their community manages a daily logistics operation – sorting, loading, and barging ten tonnes of mostly tourist rubbish to a mainland landfill.
For generations, Lahu Christians baptised in the Kok River. This year, the ritual stopped – arsenic contamination linked to Myanmar mines has made the water too dangerous to touch. Now fishing incomes are gone, tourism has collapsed, and water alternatives are dwindling.
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