Community Rights in Management, Maintenance, and Utilization of Natural Resources and Environment

Abstract

This research studied about Community Rights in Management, Maintenance, and Utilization of Natural Resources and Environment according to the Constitution law of the Kingdom of Thailand 2017. The purposes of this research are to study and analyze the foundation rules about the communities, their uniqueness as well as their rights, in order to comprehend the community rights as written in the Constitution Law of the Kingdom of Thailand.

This research also studied the community participation patterns along with the problem analysis to find the solution in Management, Maintenance and Utilization of Natural Resources and Environment in order to create the sustainable usage as stated in the Constitution Law and also harmonize with Thai culture.

The research method is Documentary Research. The study found that Thailand’s Natural Resources Management pattern can be divided into 3. First pattern is Direct Government Management, second is Government Concession Management and third pattern is Community Management. However, Direct Government Management and Government Concession Management were proved inefficient whereas the Community Management has been well accepted and certified in the Constitution law of the Kingdom of Thailand 2017.

The Community Participation according to Eilinor Ostrom’s methods have 3 levels in Natural Resource Management Participation which are 1) the Operational Rules which settled by the users, 2) the Collective Choice Rules which settled by users, persons in authority or officers, 3) the Constitution Rules which allowed the people who have rights to cooperate and settle the rules. There are 8 rules for the Natural Resource Management Participation and because all the rules are settled by the community, they should be consistent to the way of life and identity of the community.