Institutional Dynamics and Interplay: Critical Processes for Forest Governance and Sustainability in the Mountain Regions of Northern Thailand

Abstract

institutions that govern natural resources in mountain regions of northern Thailand have been critical for environmental changes, livelihoods and sustainability. Over the past decade, there have been new insights from interdisciplinary research on how societies interact with environmental changes in mountain regions. These have underlined the importance of institutions as both causes and responses to environmental change, and how institutions themselves arise from the way environmental and sustainability problems are constructed. In this chapter, these more general findings will be illustrated primarily through examples from recent and ongoing research in the mountain region of Northern Thailand. Taken together, these various studies challenge long-held beliefs about what constitutes problems in environmental change and sustainability,underline the need for a better understanding of cross-scale interactions, and point the way to