DEVELOPMENT AND BIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY IN NORTHERN THAILAND

Northern Thailand has received large amounts of development assistance, largely as a response to opium growing. This paper suggests a model to help understand why this aid has, on the whole, been unsuccessful in improving the welfare of most of the inhabitants, The paper has two main theses: first, that development has failed to recognize the importance of the environmental context of the communities, and secondly, that it has encouraged a narrowing of the economic, cultural and ecological characteristics of the area from heterogeneity to homogeneity.