Rewarding Mountain Communities for Maintaining Environmental Services of Inthanon Mountain: Transformation of villages in a park into eco-tourism communities

Accordingly, this study has collaborated with local communities and staff of an important national park in northern Thailand to explore mechanisms that might reward local communities for helping to provide stewardship for natural resources that have become part of the Kingdom’s protected forest system. Initial explorations focused on potential for application of a PES1-orientation to an existing mechanism providing funds to elected local sub-district governments near national parks based on a percentage of revenues collected by the park from visitors. After it became clear that political and bureaucratic issues would preclude application of PES-like principles once funds have entered the government domain, the study shifted to a broader exploration of how PES-like concepts and mechanisms are or might be useful for national park management at Doi Inthanon National Park (DINP). This required examination of the local context and important issues as viewed by local communities and park officials.