watershed [13 Mar 2005|09:22pm] Hi people. I just got back from Newcastle, from the 'Blueprints for change' conference. At the same time, I am writing up my report (from the geography field trip). To do this, I am learning about consultation processes, especially for big dams in South East Asia, because this is my topic. The stories of villagers in Isan (North East Thailand), who fought the Pak Mun Dam throughout the 1990's, and later, whose livelihoods and cultures were all but destroyed by the project, provide a very moving backdrop to my inquiry, a backdrop that creates a certain urgency to the learning. Watershed, a publication of the Bangkok-based TERRA (Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliances), is a great source for this. (Below, I will attach a beautiful excerpt from the first edition). Consultation processes seem to be enmeshed in so much rhetoric and PR over the past few years that it is difficult to distinguish what power relations exactly occur during them. (will post more later) **Editorial: "Why Watershed?"** Watershed - In its simplest, scientific meaning, it is the drainage basin of a river, the area through which all waters flow from their highest source before draining naturally to the sea. Within the watersheds of the great Himalayan rivers, the Salween or the Mekong, for example, are the watersheds of thousands of smaller rivers, streams and lakes, each with their own particular character and history. In the broader ecological sense, the term watershed includes not only the land and the water but also the mountains and forest, the flood plains and valleys, as well as the communities of plants, animals and people who live there. These watersheds, large and small, have been ravaged by war in the past and still are today. But the battles that now pervade the region are more commonly conflicts over natural resources -- who has the rights to use, conserve, expropriate, destroy, buy and sell. Lowlanders blame high-landers for destroying the forests and water supplies for rice fields below, rural communities blame urban and industrial centres for draining and polluting their rivers, while many traditional systems of management and conservation are discarded with the expansion of export-oriented cash crops and agri-business schemes. To compound this situation, the watersheds of mainland Southeast Asia now contain some of the last unlogged tropical forests and undammed rivers in the world. Consequently, companies from all over the world are competing to exploit these resources. Other agencies insist these areas be roped off from human activity in the name of global biodiversity conservation. Whether the demand is for development or conservation, many communities in the region who have always lived with the forests and rivers are threatened with eviction. As a result of these pressures and conflict, some people are advocating a "watershed approach" to managing natural resources. This implies a way of looking at things as a whole, of seeing people and not just the trees but the forest, not just the river but all that creates and diminishes its flow. A watershed approach can be an alternative process of learning, of learning not by separating and isolating knowledge, but by awareness of the interaction and interdependency of people and nature, the blending (and clashing) of cultural, ecological, political and economic forces which constitute life ... and destruction. In this sense, the watershed is a unit of analysis or study known as political ecology. Far from being just an academic musing, a watershed approach is a practical way to examine, and begin the search for solutions to, real life problems faced by member communities of a watershed. At the heart of this approach is empathy, a respect for life downstream and in the mountain forests where water springs. All communities in the region have known this empathy at one time or another in their culture and history. Traditional systems of living were indeed based on respect for nature and neighbours. But these have often been disrupted by the ambitions of warring armies, colonial powers, and, more recently, by the agents of 20th-century industry. Today six nation states lie within the great watersheds of the Chao Phraya, Irrawaddy, Mekong, Red and Salween rivers, which collectively are home to a cultural and biological diver- sity unparalleled on earth. In ecological and cultural terms, the borders of these states were never more than arbitrary lines on a map drawn in distant capitals. But now, even in economic and political terms, the significance of these borders is fading as the region enters the era of economic globalization. With the exception of Burma, still shackled by military rule, Yunnan and the states of Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam are opening to the global economy, undergoing radical transformations, guided by institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and by a model of industrial development followed in Thailand for the past several decades. As such, the movement of money, people, natural resources and environmental degradation across borders is accelerating with the demands of the global market economy. Having exhausted much of its forests and water resources in the drive for economic development, Thailand's demands are now driving the policies and pace of resource extraction in neighbouring Burma, Lao PDR, and Cambodia. Power plants and industrial operations, supplying markets in Japan, Europe, Thailand or Asia's economic tigers, are being shifted to Yunnan or the Mekong Delta where raw materials and labour are cheaper and plentiful. The ultimate goal, of course, is higher profits and a temporary competitive edge in the global marketplace. Thailand's experience indicates that rural communities, espe- cially those outside the cultural and economic mainstream, face a double threat from this kind of development. First, development demands extraction and expropriation of natural resources upon which communities depend. Forests are logged, labelled 'degraded', and then offered up to private companies for industrial tree farms. The destruction of fisheries becomes a "trade-off" or "acceptable environmental cost" of hydroelectric development. Not only does this process deprive people of the resources needed for survival but alienates these people from the knowledge and traditional practices that once helped sustain their communities and culture. Meanwhile, development experts, armed with indicators of poverty and economic growth, interpret communities as igno- rant and backward, destroyers of the environment, and in des- perate need of development, basic tools, and training in how to succeed in the modern world. In this region, where the pace of environmental destruction and investment in development is staggering, development as currently defined by government-industry alliances should be questioned. To do that, Watershed begins with a thought provoking feature on development and its definitions. Not everyone will agree with this feature or have the same world view as its author, but it is imperative that people engage in open and democratic discussion about critical ecological and development trends in this region. Because Watershed is produced in English, we wish to apolo- gize for its exclusivity. However, we hope to reach many people who are either working with communities or shaping policies and projects affecting communities and watersheds. Finally, there is another meaning of watershed - a turning point in the course of events that signals a break with present trends and the beginning of something new. Such a watershed is needed both in thinking and in practice. In this spirit, Watershed is offered as a hopeful forum to encourage critical thinking and discovery of paths, new and old, which can lead to sustainable development in this region. ****************************************************************** The editors welcome letters and comments from readers. Please send letters to: The Editor, Watershed, TERRA, 409 Soi Rohitsuk, Pracharatbampen Rd, Huay Kwang, 103 1 0 Bangkok, Thailand. post comment

reflexive reflection [16 Feb 2005|10:39pm] [ mood | calm ] [ music | "Take me to your heart"- a tacky Thai song ] here is an email I just sent to people: hi everyone. I haven't really written much about my experiences here. It's intimidating that at any one minute, I could communicate my experience in such an infinite combination of different moods/registers, observations- eg noises in the street, insights etc. I could structure it randomly, or categorise everything- eg "Interactions with other tourists", "observations about nature", "random cultural anomalies"...Often I've looked over an email in the past and thought "I could write that again now and it would seem as if from an entirely different person". [maybe I'm unusual in my lack of coherent thought association- i remember in year eight, when my english teacher did an evaluation/association exercise where we had to say what first came into our heads when we saw particular words from the text we studied. Don't know if I was just rebelling from the exercise, but all I could think about was worm farms (I was a bit preoccupied by growing vegies), so I told her so- she wasn't impressed...]... it also scares me that that a moment's random observations (if written down) could form the basis for memories in the future. I guess that's better than remembering nothing. (actually that's not totally true- there are so many other feedback mechanisms that trigger memories) So in previous emails, i've totally avoided these conundrums,and instead, just sent everyone material that I found on the internet [my global internet identity and practices remain constant whilst the local changes around me]. I think that's a bit of a copout- hope you weren't too taken aback by the irrelevancy of these emails to my actual expereinces overseas. The other part of me that has remained constant is my "thinking about activism and innovations/ group activities we should do". as well as thinking about the past- mainly regretful things and wondering if the situation could have ever been otherwise- and whether this matters... Sometimes I would wake, thinking about the student movement, forgetting where I am- one morning I was in a village in Isaan (NE Thailand) and I woke to bees buzzing beside my head- there was a beehive just next to where I was sleeping- and that tripped me out- But actually I think this is one of the most productive things about being overseas, effectively alone- I'm able to munch through thoughts that have previously been bugging me for a while- and to cleanse them from my system, and think of new ideas. Also, on the issue of ideas, I've been thinking about how I often have them- but those ideas don't come to fruition - (perhaps i don't even intend for them to come to fruition- they're just fun to think about) and why that is and what it would take for this situation to change. What kinds of productive, trustful, experimental communities do we have to support before we can actually share these evaluations and suggestions as a group and take responsibility for making them happen- rather than reinventing the group wheel whenever an idea necessitates the coming together of community. (On reinventing the wheel- Eric and Tanja- Canadian activists I met- gave me a book by Crimethinc (US Anarchist/situationist collective) - in there, there's one article about the scientific method and the way that the many types of folk science and the more autonomous and intuitive methods of scientific inquiry are subordinated to this one method- and the idea that progress marches on- and all we have to do is climb on the shoulders of those who have gone before us until we get to the 'undiscovered' frontier -de-necessitating us from discovering each theory ourselves. I soooo can relate to this- at school I found science and maths such joyful pursuits, because I would love to discover the theories myself and 'reinvent the wheel'. However at uni- its been like we just learn what so-and so discovered and don't experience that 'Eureka' moment ourselves. (That's partly my fault I know) So I eventually dropped out of all the rigorous sciences because they stopped being intuitive- more like rote learning. [Geography is now my science major- and this SE Asian field school throughout Jan was one of the best learning experiences I have ever had] Eric and Tanja's activism is such a wholesome and holistic part of their lives- its something I hope to become like. Tomorrow (my last day), we're going to meet for breakfast, and brainstorm practicalities for an idea we had (originally jokingly) about an activist bike rally/ treasure hunt/ activities/action task competition for teams of new and experienced people. Also, I have met up with Gary Lee a few times- the NGO- TERRA that he works for is absolutely awesome- the director sat down with us and reminisced/ analysed his experiences of the Thai student movement/ movement for democracy in the 1970's. I have also rummaged through many documents at TERRA about the Pak Mun Dam- one case study I am interested in -giving me context for my geography project on consultation- looking at the interchange between the World Bank and TERRA/local people in the early 90's. Pretty fascinating - a historian could look at them as (primary?) documents about a social movement in Thailand- I'll have to do a 'show and tell' when I get home. post comment

random emails [06 Feb 2005|09:10pm] [ mood | calm ] [ music | some random jazz with a regular dance-beat in the background ] hey ppls I have sooo much to write about. I am now in Bangkok, several days after the Field School has finished. I will backpost some of my writings later, when I bring my notebooks downstairs. Meanwhile, I will be lazy and post some (quite boring) emails I wrote to people: hi Louise, thanks for emailing. I'm still in Bangkok and quite exhausted- dont have the energy to do much- partly because I went swimming yesterday and also went out dancing the night before. I always get sooo tired from swimming. I met a really awesome activist couple, Eric and Tanja, from canada whilst swimming in the hotel swimming pool, and they gave me two of their books. Hopefully i'll meet up with them again tomorrow, and maybe again if I go to Nth America. Also whilst lost a few nights ago, I ran into a woman from Melbourne, Asha, in a 7-11 convenience store, when i was asking for directions...whom I vaguely knew from a Students and Sustainability conference. She's really lovely. She's living in Bangkok and going to do an internship with an NGO (gender and development issues) over the next few months. I introduced her to TERRA, another NGO in Bangkok that I have been going to (my friend Gary from enviro collective at usyd works there) that she had been trying to find for months. Over the next few days, I'm going to go to Chulalongkorn University and try to find Focus on the Global South (http://www.focusweb.org). I've been buying things and feeling quite grossed out from being too consumerist. Also, Anna and I got ripped off a few days ago when we both bought a mobile phone that we thought had certain features (eg bluetooth) and it didn't. (this phone): http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000130029154/ So I would ideally like to sell it again on Thai Ebay- though on Ebay, you have to jump through a few hoops to get a reliable reputation etc. Also, I have sent the packaging back to Australia with my friend Tara, who kindly brought some of my luggage back with her. So that will be difficult. Do you want me to buy you anything? I'm going to buy myself a USB storage device. Most products are cheaper than Australia. I'll be hanging around Bangkok and then Nth Thailand for the next two weeks. See you soon x Anne Hi Anna. Thanks. Do you think we should sell them on Thai Ebay? I'll ask around for advice here. I'm thinking of going either to Chiang Mai or Cambodia. I've been reading your Lonely Planet- Cambodia actually looks really interesting. I've also been reading a famous book about the Vietnam War, called 'the sorrow of war' by Bao Ninh. It's a riveting and very sad read. Also, I ran into some Canadian activists who have given me books including one awesome one: 'Days of War, Nights of Love: Crimethink for Beginners'. http://www.crimethinc.com/ xx Anne > hey Anne > hope you're having fun. > jsut so you know, i think NUS gives me aphone for the year - so > don't worry about buying me one. > I havent used the phone yet because the charger plug is korean so > we need to get adaptors. > First lesson of the year in gullibility. > Love, Anna > > post comment

Can Tho, Vietnam [05 Jan 2005|06:27pm] Here are some excerpts from my notebook that I am randomly writing in: Jan 2 (In a very lyrical voice- don't be intimidated to write in a more informal style) The Mekong breathes in and out each day - not just with the tides, but with boats laden with fruit and vegetables, fresh fish and crustaceans, soil and gravel for building. The network of canals, like blood vessels, extends beyond the reach of roads, to small hamlets- centres of production just like cells at the end of a network of capillaries. Farmers from hamlets in the south and west travel to the floating markets near Can Tho at dawn each morning with their produce, in long old wooden boats, dipping oars in the water, or sitting back and steering, with spluttering diesel motors. Once at the markets, they advertise their produce on tall sticks of bamboo- carrots and melons and other vegetables I don't recognise dangling up above the boats. We sit on tables and chairs in an open air eating area outside our hotel in Can Tho. The food is amazing... (will continue) Jan 4 I have now settled into the rhythm of this journey today, with the help of several strong coffees,that lifted the tiredness that had followed me around everywhere like smog since the first day. After breakfast- fresh as always, as I have come to expect- I strayed behind the group, after taking a long time getting bottled water. The elderly woman who served us breakfast instructed me to walk straight and turn right. I walked for several hundred metres along a path through eucalypts and acacia (a raised bank between swamps) to no avail, until I discovered I was being followed by schoolboys in well worn white shirts and dark trousers, with twisted red scarves wrapped (like brownie scarves) around their necks. When they came closer, I gestured "where am I?" and tried to ask them where my friends had gone. They giggled, not understanding, and helpfully pointed ahead- and so I continued in my path, following their direction until I came to a small log bridge, like the one we crossed at An Binh. After me, one boy rode effortlessly across the bridge on a rusty bike. They kept following until we came to a rundown house surrounded by rice paddies. A man was running a motor in the water, and a woman was sitting down in a hammock, with her two kids looking at me. I felt bad I had intruded- and the other kids were looking expectantly at me, so I turned back the way I came- the boys laughing, playing and skipping- until I got back to the clearing at the start, where I found Lindsay who was looking for me. "We only have 7 sydney people- how could one get lost?" Lindsay asked. I walked with them to where the group was- almost glad I had had a solitary journey by accident. post comment

random stuff [30 Dec 2004|12:31am] [ mood | tired ] [ music | Tracey Chapman and Suzanne Vega ] Already, Frances Moore Lappe, an amazing ecological thinker who wrote the book 'Food First'(I think)in the 1970's (and who now has 2 activist writer- children who I admire) has written an essay in response to Lakoff's Don't Think of An Elephant, particularly critiquing his metaphor of the conservative as the strict parent figure and the progressive as the nurturing parent figure. (I guess I haven't really had a thread on this journal about Lakoff and language, but I guess I can start). She thinks that our society is evolving beyond the nuclear family and becoming interconnected in multiple other ways, that makes the (assumed) nuclear family metaphor redundant, and calls for metaphors more related to community.here is more of her writings, and here is her and Anna's blog... Some things I've found trawling through the net (now that metaphor doesn't make sense, does it?- you can trawl with a net but you can't trawl through a net): Motivated from seeing the Seattle WTO video "This is what Democracy Looks Like" about a month ago at the indymedia 5-year fundraiser, I did a google search on the lyrics 'If you go to jail for justice, then you're a friend of mine", which I heard someone sing on the video. I found Anne Feeney's website, which actually has a short sound clip of exactly these words! anyway it's an awesome song. The Lyrics are here. From an indymedia link, I found a Canadian website dedicated to remembering an activist- Bob Everton, who just died less than a month ago. Wow... what a man. greatest respects to you my friend (even though we have never met). Also, Susan Sontag died. I was only reading her Notes on Camp last week, which I found fascinating and greatly helpful in my understanding of Camp and its history. (I have previously felt quite hostile towards Camp because I can't stand anything that is fake, and I dislike people who see life as a stage (not in the Shakespearian sense of us being merely players, but rather in the sense of acting roles all the time)). Maybe I'll actually go to the shows at the Imperial and get the jokes now... I've also been looking at stuff about the tsunami.(NZ IMC, Jakarta IMC). It's overwhelming. I've just been thinking a lot about how logistically you could warn people without a proper warning system. It seems so simple- if you were a ocean geologist or whatever and saw the earthquake and waves through satellite technology, within between 3/4 and three hours how could you ring a local area and get people to take your warning seriously? I guess you would have to get someone important like a diplomat to do it- there would have to be some sort of chain of confirmation so that there is continual trust of good evidence. My dad is considering going over to Sri Lanka to help. I hope that my friend Devika is alright- she is holidaying in Sri Lanka at the moment. I am interested in the connection between earthquakes and oil drilling. It seems that oil could act as like a lubricant between plates, and when it is extracted, earthquakes can be more frequent- kind of like the fluid in your knee joint. Several years ago I read about this, but don't know the source. Some sources from google: a website on Man-made Earthquakes, some stories from experience of the U'Wa people in South America, and the intro to a study that acknowledges oil drilling as a factor in earthquakes. 1 comment|post comment

[27 Dec 2004|10:35pm] [ mood | pensive ] [ music | David Helfgott- Rachmaninov piano concertos ] I am moving out of Newtown. I breathe in the mounds of dust that have gathered behind the filing cabinet (not very good for an allergic person like me), and try to sort things out into categories that will remain useful beyond the practical considerations of moving. Nikki and Az left this morning for the Woodford Folk Festival (near Brisbane- LUCKY THEM) leaving me with the house to myself. I am still scheming to try to work out a way that I can possibly get to the festival- its a total utopia- , but with such a long 'to do' list, my chances look slim. (I am leaving to go overseas for the geography 'Asia Pacific development' field school on Friday.) Today I went to the city and bought lots of tacky Australian souvenirs to give my hosts that I stay with whilst overseas. At the moment, I am tossing up whether to move my stuff to my grandmas or home with my family- this is where I'll live for a few months early next year. Considering how tense and chaotic it was over Christmas, I don't think I'll be able to deal with not having much space to think if I move back home, so I'm tempted to move it all to my grandma's. anyways i'll leave it at that for the moment a. post comment

[20 Dec 2004|11:09pm] [ mood | listless ] [ music | The Monster Slash- as seen on the link ] After many thwarted attempts at a blog at Tripod and Blogger, I discovered livejournal, because I have spent ALL DAY trying to work out how to configure RSS news feeds (It's probably very easy for all you geeks)... and they said on one site that Live Journal is good at this. Anyway... another day spent blankly looking into cyberspace. I have some treasures to show you all... Australian Sites: Milkbar.com.au: an excellent oral history site about Fitzroy, Victoria. This particular section is about the World Economic Forum protests (s11) in 2000, that successfully blockaded the forum- this was my first big protest experience. Here is ~my account- that hardly does justice to it- will be updated soon. The Melbourne-based Blackwood Group, a philosophy circle associated with EthicalPolitics.org (maybe only through Andy Blunden) Site critiquing carbon credits, which is sorely needed in Australia- although FOE Melbourne was previously campaigning on it... An article by Bob Burton on the latest plottings of that machiavellian loony right wing thinktank, the Institute of Public Affairs, and their launch of an anti-environmentalist group. (not Aust newsfeed) US Sites: An awesome childrens story about refusing to recite the American plege of Allegiance... A very inspiring speech by a former US soldier. beehive collective- another site that we can soooo learn from- using their talents as graphic designers to educate society and motivate people to pursue sustainability. They also have a wiki devoted to mapping the food system. The Monster Slash: a very cute song about the US forest policies</a> Other Global Sites: Zmag:Democracy and its Simulacra: A report from the World Agricultural Forum. Equity Watch: A climate newsletter from the South. from Canada: Autonomy and Solidarity: an autonomist/ libertarian socialist website (Love and Rage used to publish a newsletter under that name)... Sinks Watch: a site monitoring the dubious 'clean development mechanism of the kyoto protocol, that can be criticised as a loophole. And here is the blog I have maintained haphazardly up until now. cyas x A. 2 comments|post comment

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