Framing in geographical analysis of environmental conflicts: Theory, methodology and three case studies

When applied to environmental concerns, framing offers a rigorous conceptual and analytic approach with potentially practical significance for dealing with complex issues relevant to geography. The purpose of this article is to introduce framing concepts, typology and modes of analysis to address issues which geographers commonly treat: disputes over land ownership and uses, competition for water resources, cultural clashes over control of territory and resources and the impact of spatial patterns and structures when siting noxious sites. Framing analysis is applied to three cases of environmental conflict in Israel and, more generally, for understanding conflicts revolving around the management of human habitats in relation to the physical environment.     

Globalized conflicts of discourse: the type of conflict of proxies*

The article describes a new form of transnational environmental conflict that developed in the wake of globalisation. Activist in this new type of conflict still act as proxies of groups under pressure but in contrast to transnational environmental conflicts hitherto the target of their protests is rather their own society at home than the location of the pressured group. Despite these conditions it is claimed that this type of metaphorical conflict is going to become more frequent as alliances are built along the oppostion to a dominant discourse. According to the model, conflicts of values are easier to transfer on stages abroad or across the Atlantic than conflicts of interests and motivation for activists is higher as the return is affecting their home society. Dynamic and features of this type of conflict are explained with help of discourse theory.     

A review of Lower and Middle Palaeozoic biostratigraphy in west peninsular Malaysia and southern Thailand in its context within the Sibumasu Terrane

Fossils from the Cambrian to Devonian rocks of southern Thailand, the Langkawi Islands, mainland Kedah, Perlis, north Perak and central West Peninsular Malaysia are listed and reviewed, and their stratigraphy and correlation reassessed. The hitherto anomalous record of the trilobite Dalmanitina from Malaysia is reviewed and found to be of latest Ordovician (Hirnantian) age, rather than Lower Silurian age as previously reported, and is considered a probable synonym of the widespread Mucronaspis mucronata. A new stratigraphical nomenclature is erected for part of the Langkawi, mainland Kedah and Perlis area successions, in which the term Setul Limestone (which stretched from the Ordovician to the Devonian) is abandoned and replaced by the Middle Ordovician Kaki Bukit Limestone, the late Ordovician and early Silurian Tanjong Dendang Formation, the Silurian Mempelam Limestone, and the early Devonian Timah Tasoh Formation, all underlying the paraconformity with the late Devonian Langgun Red Beds. There was a single depositional basin in the generally shallow-water and cratonic areas of southern Thailand, Langkawi, and mainland Kedah and Perlis, in contrast to the deeper-water basin of north Perak. Only Silurian rocks are dated with certainty within another basin in central West Malaysia, near Kuala Lumpur, which were also cratonic and shallow-water, although to the east in west Pahang there are basal Devonian deeper-water sediments with graptolites. The area is reviewed in its position within the Sibumasu Terrane, which, in the Palaeozoic, also included central and northern Thailand, Burma (Myanmar) and southwest China (part of Yunnan Province).     

东构造节的伸展和折返: 泰国北部裂谷的重力信号

Although many of its details have been criticised, the indenter model of India-Asia collision (Fig 1) is still widely accepted as providing a workable first-order explanation for the structural development of the eastern syntaxis and the initiation of the major NW-SE faults that segment the mainland of Southeast Asia. Arguments have largely concerned the extent to which the arrival of the continental crust of greater India has been accommodated by thickening beneath the Tibetan Plateau or by extrusion of blocks into Southeast Asia. Second-order structures relevant to such questions include elevated plateaus, metamorphic core complexes and the networks of rift basins with broadly N-S trends. In northern Thailand, one such rift network has been responsible for the development of a characteristic basin-and-range morphology.     

Farmers, foresters and forest temples: conservation in the Dong Mun uplands, Northeast Thailand

Between 1970 and 1980 villages adjacent to the Dong Mun Uplands of Northeastern Thailand were transformed from subsistence communities, based on wet rice production, to a cash economy linked to global markets and the national and international political order. Although formally designated reserves had been created on old growth forests, the new economic opportunities encouraged conversion of forests to agriculture. Attracted by a false belief that land was being made available for settlement, immigrants flooded in and cleared forests to plant dryland cash crops using the newly expanded and improved road network to export their products. Social forestry programs may have assisted community development and encouraged agricultural diversification but were insufficient to prevent the contraction of forests, which now remain only as degraded remnants on the steepest slopes and least accessible sites.To some extent the social, political and economic forces have stabilized in Dong Mun and evidence of a new relationship between humans and their forest land is appearing. The Royal Forest Service is largely reconciled to the loss of domain over most of forest reserve and is pursuing a modified management policy that shows some evidence of a shift from an industrial to a post-industrial mode.In recent years, Buddhist monks in forest temples found through the uplands have achieved some effective forest conservation and restoration. Their efforts stem from the Buddhist precepts of the sanctity of all life and a view that forests are places for contemplation and spiritual renewal. Monks have been able to protect and restore some forest land because their views and wishes are far more likely to be honored than laws and demands of government officials. This reflects a broader phenomenon in Thailand where considerable impetus for a contemporary environmental movement has come from religious sources in contrast to the west where it is largely a secular in origin.     

Business and Bludgeon at the Border: A transnational political economy of human displacement in Thailand and Burma

Transnational economic integration between Thailand and Burma is intimately linked to protection for Burmese refugees in Thailand. In the case of Burmese nationals who seek safety in Thailand, their protection becomes more negotiable as economic integration with Thailand proceeds. Since 1988, hundreds of thousands of Burmese citizens have fled beyond the borders of their state, fearing both human rights abuses and successive offensives by a military junta intent on its own survival. Critical analysis of the dynamic of human displacement and bi-national economic cooperation between the governments of Thailand Burma grounds this study. The story is one of transnational trade across one border, where people's labour, homes, and passports are exchanged – in an obscured fashion – for investment, natural resources, and economic cooperation. The Thai-Burmese border proves to be a flexible concept that can be invoked to produce refugees or blurred to promote binational economic infrastructure and trade. Despite economic booms and busts in Southeast Asia, economic integration in the region is on-going. At the same time, Burma's government – the State Peace and Development Council – and its military force more and more citizens into neighbouring countries. Their reception in Thailand, however, is increasingly chilly. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Shifting frames for local people and forests in a global heritage: the Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary in the context of Thailand’s globalization and modernization

Focusing on the case of the World Heritage Site and Wildlife Sanctuary Thung Yai Naresuan, the paper sketches the interdependences of international and national forest and conservation policies in Thailand since the middle of the 19th century. In the context of Thailand’s globalization and modernization, these policies resulted in a coercing conservationism which focuses increasingly on the so-called ‘hill tribe’ ethnic minority groups. The shifting cultural and political framings of the area that became a national wildlife sanctuary and a ‘global heritage’ reflect external economic, political, and ideological interests. The people of the Karen ethnic minority group who live in the sanctuary are conceived of as a disruptive factor and never have had a chance to participate in these framings. After the designation of the area as a World Heritage Site, the remaining villages face increasing pressure from the Royal Forest Department which is trying to remove them with the help of the Military. Drawing on the different vested interests and the relativity of cultural conceptualizations, the paper questions the external framing, pointing to three major problems that are raised with regard to Thung Yai, but are symptomatic of modern conservationism at large: inconsistencies between normative claims and political practice; distortions of scale between conceptions designed at different levels of social space from the local to the global, and; the problem to reconcile conflicting cultural patterns and conceptualizations. The paper argues for a reframing of the conflict to conceive the Karen in Thung Yai as an integral part of the ‘global heritage’.     

Geochemical characteristics of modern river sediments in Myanmar and Thailand: Implications for provenance and weathering

The elemental composition of organic matter and the major and trace element compositions of stream sediments from Myanmar (Ayeyarwady and Sittaung rivers) and Thailand (Mekong and Chao Phraya rivers, and their tributaries) were determined to examine their distributions, provenance, and chemical weathering processes. Higher total organic carbon (TOC) and total nitrogen (TN) contents in the finer grained sediments indicate hydrodynamic energy may control their distributions. TOC/TN ratios indicate inputs of both aquatic macrophyte and higher vascular plant material to the river sediments. The major element abundances of the sediments are characterized by predominance of SiO₂ in coarser fractions and a marked negative correlation with Al₂O₃, representing primary grain size primarily control on SiO₂ content. Marked depletion of most labile elements (Na₂O, CaO, K₂O, Ba and Sr) relative to UCC (upper continental crust), indicate destruction of feldspar during chemical weathering in the source area or during transport. However, enrichment of some high field strength elements (Zr, Th, Ce and Y) relative to UCC and higher Zr/Sc ratios indicate moderate concentration of resistant heavy minerals in finer-grained samples. Discriminant diagrams and immobile trace element characteristics indicate that the Mekong, and Chao Phraya river sediments were largely derived from felsic sources with compositions close to typical rhyolite, dacite/granodiorite, UCC, I- and S-type granites. Relative enrichment of ferromagnesian elements (e.g. MgO, Cr, Ni) and high Cr/V and low Y/Ni ratios in Ayeyarwady and Sittaung sediments indicate the presence of a mafic or ultramafic component in their sources. The ICV (Index of Compositional Variability), CIA (Chemical Index of Alteration), PIA (Plagioclase Index of Alteration), α^Al, Rb/Sr and K₂O/Rb ratios indicate that the Ayeyarwady and Sittaung sediments record low to moderate degrees of chemical weathering in their source, compared to moderate to intense chemical weathering in the Mekong and Chao Phraya river basins. These results are compatible with existing major ion data for river waters collected at the same locations.     

Environmental literacy in interpreting endangered sustainability: Case studies from Thailand and the Sudan

This paper examines how people explain reasons and impacts of environmental change in the low-rain savanna of the central Sudan and mountainous forest lands of northern Thailand. The explanations are analyzed by using the concept of environmental literacy, which refers to the people’s ability to grasp the environment and its interactions. The paper aims to study people’s conceptions of the environment, which compose one factor in directing their behavior. For the study, rural inhabitants in the State of North Kordofan, the Sudan, and the Chiang Mai Province in Thailand were interviewed.It was noted that an individual’s capability to understand the environment is alone insufficient to address environmental problems because the efficient alleviation of the problems requires collective actions at all levels, and because of factors beyond an individual’s control. However, the results supported the assumption that the local people have knowledge of their environment that may help in developing sustainable environmental management practices. The main advantages of using the environmental literacy concept are argued to be its dynamic and synthetic essence, its link to sustainable behavior, and wide applicability in various contexts within heterogeneous communities.     

泰国西部比洛克(Pilok)锡钨矿流体包裹体研究及矿床成因

对泰缅毗邻区比洛克锡钨矿区含矿石英脉进行了流体包裹体分析。包裹体岩相学研究表明,流体主要为富液相包裹体和H₂ O-CO₂三相包裹体。显微测温分析结果显示,均一温度为200~350℃,盐度(w (NaCl))为0.43%~12.42%,石英脉中H₂ O-CO₂三相包裹体成矿压力为102~350mPa,估算成矿深度在0.34~1.37 km。这些数据表明,石英脉型钨锡矿主要形成于岩浆演化晚期的中高温岩体顶部。结合前人稳定同位素等分析结果,认为比洛克锡钨矿存在4个矿化阶段:(1)早期高温产于细粒花岗岩内的黑钨矿±锡石±黄铁矿矿化;(2)与石英±钾长石脉有关的黑钨矿矿化;(3)叠加在中期钾化和钨矿化上的云英岩型锡矿化;(4)晚期中高温(220~350℃)低盐度(< 5% NaCl_eq.)混合流体为主的石英脉型钨锡矿化。结合研究区的区域构造演化及岩浆演化特征研究,建立了比洛克锡钨矿的找矿模型,并对该区进一步找矿提出建议。     

Tectonic setting of volcanic rocks in the Akara Au mine, north-central Thailand using petrochemical and stratigraphic investigations

Akara gold mine in north-central Thailand is situated within the Loei-Phetchabun-Nakhon Nayok volcanic belt. The roughly north-south trending, Permo-Triassic volcanic rocks earlier mapped by Thailand Department of Mineral Resources were re-mapped and samples were collected from the main active open pit. Forty-four samples were petrographi-cally classified and geochemically analyzed to docu-ment their stratigraphy. Two types of volcanic rocks are recognized, namely coherent and non-coherent units, in which the former is older on the basis of stratigraphic succession. Several lines of evidence suggest that the studied rocks occurred nearby the volcanic edifices and were dominated by debris flows of submarine environment.     

The Indian Ocean tsunami of December 26, 2004: observations in Sri Lanka and Thailand

On December 26, 2004 a great earthquake (M _W 9.3) occurred off the western coast of Sumatra triggering a series of tsunami waves that propagated across the Indian Ocean causing damage and life loss in 12 countries. This paper summarizes the observations of lifeline performance, building damage and its distribution, and the social and economic impact of the tsunami made by the Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT) in Thailand and Sri Lanka. EEFIT operates under the umbrella of the UK’s Institution of Structural Engineers. It is observed that good engineering practice can reduce economic losses, but additional measures are required to reduce risk to life.     

Arsenic contamination in surface drainage and groundwater in part of the southeast Asian tin belt,Nakhon Si Thammarat Province,southern Thailand

The occurrence of human health problems resulting from arsenic contamination of domestic water supplies in Ron Phibun District, Nakhon Si Thammarat Province, southern Thailand was first recognized in 1987. The area has an extensive history of bedrock and alluvial mining, the waste from which is typically rich in arsenopyrite and related alteration products. In 1994 a collaborative study was instigated involving Thai and British government authorities to establish the distribution and geochemical form of As in surface drainage and aquifer systems in the affected area, the probable sources of As contamination, and the potential for problem alleviation. Hydrochemical analyses of surface- and groundwaters have confirmed the presence of dissolved As at concentrations exceeding WHO potable water guidelines by up to a factor of 500. Contamination of the shallow alluvial aquifer system is systematically more severe than the underlying carbonate-hosted aquifer. Deep boreholes may therefore provide the best available potable water source for the local population. The presence of up to 39% of total As as arsenite (H₃AsO₃) within the carbonate aquifer may, however, constitute a hidden toxicological risk, not evident in the shallow groundwater (in which arsenate species account for > 95% of total As). Mineralogical investigations of As-rich tailings and flotation wastes were undertaken to evaluate their likely impact on water quality. The results indicate that although some flotation wastes contain up to 30% As, the rate of leaching is extremely low. Consequently the As loading of drainage emanating from such waste is below the subregional average. Analyses of the silty alluvium that covers much of the central sector of the study area have highlighted As concentrations of up to 5000 mg kg^–1, probably carried by disseminated arsenopyrite. Following sulfide dissolution, the mobility of As in this material may be high (with resultant contamination of shallow groundwater) due to the low Fe content of the soil. On the basis of the data acquired, a range of pollution mitigation schemes are currently under investigation including Fe supplementation of alluvium and microbial degradation of disseminated arsenopyrite.     

近40年黄河流域资源环境格局变化分析与地质工作建议

20世纪80年代以来,自然演变与强烈的人类活动叠加,致使黄河流域资源环境格局发生了显著变化,进而影响其开发利用布局,面临诸多资源短缺、环境退化和生态破坏问题,急需从地球系统科学的视角深入研究流域资源环境的格局变化特点,识别重大资源环境问题,提出解决方案,为黄河流域可持续发展提供决策依据.本研究以"山水林田湖草"生命共同...     

Something in the Air: Civic science and contentious environmental politics in post-apartheid South Africa

The emergence of an environmental movement in post-apartheid South Africa has involved the reframing of the environment as a ‘brown’ issue, articulating the discourse of social and environmental justice and a rights-based notion of democracy. Environmental movements have pursued a dual strategy of deliberation and activist opposition. Environmental movements have deployed science to pursue the strategic task of democratic opposition and have established networks of environmental knowledge and expertise. Ecological modernization is the dominant approach to environmental governance and adopts a science-based policy approach. In this context the regulation and management of the environment is premised on the need for science, which provides the authoritative basis for a regulatory response. In local environmental movements, there exists a fundamental tension between a cumulative history of lay knowledge about pollution and the lack of official acknowledgement of qualitative narratives. This is accompanied by a lack and suspicion of reliable official data. Environmental movements have thus employed ‘civic science’ strategically to place the issue of air pollution on the political agenda. This paper uses the case of environmental politics in Durban to reflect on the ways in which civic science and lay knowledge, together constituting community hybrid knowledge, are produced and disseminated in order to pressure the state and capital. The three ways in which knowledge is deployed are: to frame environmental problems, in strategies of oppositional advocacy, and in deliberative policy forums. Empirical analysis shows that civic science is produced through knowledge networks, and both lay knowledge and civic science are opportunistically used by environmental movements to engage both inside and outside formal policy making arenas. This deployment of hybrid knowledge by environmental movements represents a broader challenge to the power of science and technology based on increasing evidence of the hazards and risks facing ordinary people in their daily lives.     

Programming beauty and the absence of Na Lao: popular Thai TV and identity formation among youth in Northeast Thailand

People living in the northeast of Thailand interchangeably label themselves and are labelled by others as Isan, Thai Isan, Lao Isan, Thai or Lao, depending on the ethnic, political, social or familial nuances of any given situation. I use the term Lao Isan to refer specifically to Isan people of Lao origin or ethnicity. Lao Isan are subject to complex and often competing notions of Isan-ness, Lao-ness and Thai-ness by insiders and outsiders. Using data derived from an ethnographic study of popular Thai television and Lao Isan youth (aged 17–25) living in the city of Khon Kaen and the town of Mahasarakham in northeast Thailand in 2002, this paper explores contemporary and co-existing interpretations of Isan identity or Khwampenisan among Lao Isan youth in relation to self-image and connections with national understandings of physical beauty as they are perpetuated in Thai-produced television programs.

Assessment of mercury mobility and bioavailability by fractionation method in sediments from coastal zone inundated by the 26 December 2004 tsunami in Thailand

The 26 December 2004 tsunami covered significant portion of a coastal zone with a blanket of potentially contaminated sediments. In this report are presented results on mercury concentrations in sediments deposited by the tsunami in a coastal zone of Thailand. Since the total mercury concentrations are insufficient to assess mercury mobility and bioavailability in sediment, its fractionation was applied. Sediments were sampled within 50 days after the event and analyzed by sequential extraction method. The procedure of sequential extraction involved five subsequent stages performed with solutions of chloroform, deionized water, 0.5 M HCl, 0.2 M NaOH, and aqua regia. The mean concentration of total mercury in sediments was 119 ± 50 ng g⁻¹ dry mass (range 66–230). The fractionation revealed that mercury is mainly bound to the least bioavailable sulphides 75 ± 6% (range 62–86), organomercury compounds 14 ± 7% (range 4–26), and humic matter 9 ± 7% (range 1–27). The lowest contributions bring fractions of water-soluble mercury 0.8 ± 1.0% (range 0.1–3.6) and acid soluble mercury 0.9 ± 0.5% (range 0.2–2.1). Although, the total mercury content is similar in a reference sample and in the tsunami sediments, the highly toxic organomercury fraction contribution is higher in the latter. The results were compared with chemical and sedimentological properties of the sediments but no significant correlations were obtained between them.     

The neoliberalization of ecosystem services: wetland mitigation banking and problems in environmental governance

Wetland mitigation banking is an American neoliberal environmental policy that has created a functioning market in `ecosystem services', commodities defined using the holistic measures of ecological science. The development of this market is discussed as a project of environmental governance, defined as the nation-state's regulation of ecological relations within its territory towards stabilizing capitalist relations of power and accumulation. I argue that the wetland banking industry serves as a bellwether that presages problems that other strategies of neoliberal environmental governance will experience. Ethnographic, economic and ecological data from the Chicago-area wetland banking industry inform a discussion of two major obstacles to neoliberal strategy: the problem of relying on ecological science to define the unit of trade, and the problem of aligning the somewhat independent relations of law, politics, markets and ecosystems across an array of spatial scales. Theoretical guidance is sought from recent work on `social natures' and from the Regulationist approach to institutional political economics.     

泰国西部比洛克（Pilok）锡钨矿区二长花岗岩SHRIMP 锆石U-Pb 年龄及其地质意义

使用SHRIMP 技术测得泰国西部比洛克（Pilok）钨锡矿区的2 件二长花岗岩的锆石U-Pb 年龄分别为181.7±4.8Ma和175.3±3.3Ma,属于早侏罗世Toarcian 期,代表了岩体的侵位年龄。岩石主量和微量元素特征分析表明,比洛克钨锡矿区的二长花岗岩为高钾钙碱性S 型过铝质花岗岩。结合区域地质特征,比洛克矿区二长花岗岩应是班公湖—怒江—抹谷洋壳向西侧的腾冲—德林达依陆块俯冲的产物。