1. Villagers' Evolving and Adapting Way of Life 

Officials from the Ministry of Agriculture originally claimed that the dam would relieve water scarcity and increase farmers’ ability to irrigate land. Instead, it flooded the land of thousands of farmers, destroying rice fields and livestock habitats. Researchers estimate that as many as 17,000 farmers from three provinces - Si Saket, Surin, and Roi Et - have been negatively affected by the dam, which has contributed to labor migration and breakup of traditional family structures in Isaan.

2. Activism Strategies

Villagers discussed different grassroots organizing eras from activists like the Assembly of the Poor, a nationwide organization that emerged in the mid-1990s to advocate for the rural poor in the wake of large-scale international development schemes. In 1997, they protested the dam construction by stealing stones from the dam’s base and orchestrating a mass 25,000 person protest in Bangkok. In recent years, many of these same community members have organized week-long bike rides along the Mun River, building solidarity amongst dam-affected towns. This strategy, along with The Wetlands Center itself, is a departure from large scale marches in Bangkok. These more subtle forms of organizing draw researchers, activists, and government stakeholders to the dam site, subverting the centralized government regime.

3. Women Land Rights Defenders

Interestingly, women played a greater role in some actions as they usually stayed at the frontline while protesting. Women leveraged their feminine traits including gentleness, empathy, and sensitivity as negotiating tactics when mobilizing the mass and protesting the government. Women land rights defenders in Rasi Salai often shared their motivation stemmed from the basic desire to protect their livelihoods and the ecology of their homeland.


4. Forest Spirits and Culture

Many villagers use nature festivals, ghost stories, and folklore as tools to talk about their degraded homeland, once a fertile source for food and cultural sustenance. For instance, we reported on rice festival this year. Over 500 people gathered at the Wetlands Center, for the official purpose of celebrating rice harvest and paying respect to nature spirits. But the annual holy day has taken on a new meaning in Rasi Salai, as one way to bring Mun river communities together - and as a creative protest tool cataloging the ways the dam has irreparably altered the river and damaged their way of life.

5. Generation and Globalization

The struggle against the dam built three generations of Mun river villagers who deeply value environmental justice, and activism. As rural transformation and deagrarianization has swept over Isaan during over the past two decades, the younger generation has turned to urbanized values, a global trend that also shaped the new generation of activists' strategies and actions.

Wipada Chunkla, a member of The Tam Mun Project, focuses on rehabilitation for those affected by the Hua Nam and Rasi Salai dams, often via organic farming initiatives. Chunkla joined protests in October 2019 and shared that adults outnumbered teenagers.

“The same teenagers who marched to Bangkok in thepast have now become the older adults who still join the protest. Young people these days do not have the sentimental feeling of being a part of that movement, they do not feel the dam has affected them as much, and they have to work and study.”


 Wippada also commented on how the current national political climate has reflected growing political engagement among young people.

“The dam construction is a part of the government’s plan. The dissolution of the Future Forward Party also comes from the government. Even controlling Coronavirus is something the government must deal with. So, while children who were born in the family of affected people do not share the same sentimental feelings as their parents, they are very engaged in these current events.”