The cradle of rice and water. That is how we Thais like to describe our country, proud of being blessed by natural abundance. Sadly, such good fortune is now history.
We thought the drought last year was bad. This year is going to much worse as the country is facing the most severe drought in 20 years.
Authorities blame it on climate change, but that is only half of the story. Much of the blame belongs to the government's top-down water management ridden with policy flaws and bureaucratic inefficiency. This is why we should pay attention to the draft water bill, soon to be forwarded to the National Legislative Assembly for approval.
First, let's look at what is before us. According to Seree Suparatid, director of Climate Change and Disasters of Rangsit University, the critically low level of water in the Bhumibol and Sirikit dams will last until July only. The situation with other dams is no better. With scarce annual rainfall a certainty as a result of the extreme El Nino effect, a water crisis is inevitable. Last week, the government declared 28 provinces at drought disaster risk. For the first time ever, Bangkok has been included.
It should not have been this bad.
We need to go back to the big flood in 2011. It is now known that the flood disaster was very much the result of top-down water mismanagement. The Agriculture Ministry refused to release flood water from the North in order to save rice farmers who were voters in the ministers' constituencies. This eventually led to bursting dams and destructive flooding.
The following year, both the Bhumibol and Sirikit dams were full. Due to the flood trauma, the government ordered a massive release of water down to only 45% of the dam capacity. Then, drought struck.
During the 2011 flood, effective efforts to curb and cope with the disasters were made mostly by locals who know their geographical topographies best. For them, the negative impacts of climate change could be reduced had successive governments and officialdom taken better care of the rain-catchment forests by being tough with agro giants' cash crop plantations on the highlands.
Water use amid scarcity could also be better and more fairly managed if locals' concerns were heeded, not only those of the industrial and tourism sectors. Many mistakes could have been avoided had authorities accepted local knowledge of local topography and water management.
They do not need climate change to tell them of the disaster of officialdom's mismanagement and negligence. Examples abound. In the North, top-down concrete water dams have destroyed not local waterways, but also traditional systems of water management.
In the western coastal provinces, top-down irrigation schemes have devastated the Mae Klong riverine ecology and triggered water wars on the ground. Meanwhile, authorities insist on building more dams in pristine forests amid a failure to punish agro-giants for destroying rain-catchment forests. Buildings and roads are allowed to be built, obstructing water flow. Canals remain clogged. Inefficiency and corruption remain unpunished.
To turn things around, local communities want to have a say in the management of their river basins. This is why civic and grassroots groups are opposing the draft water management bill that still gives officialdom total control.
Sponsored by the Department of Water Resources, the draft allows central authorities to "change the shape" of water sources. The national water management committee is dominated by bureaucrats. The draft ignores local representation and overlooks the need to integrate water with land and forest management policies.
The good news is that this draft is being redrafted due to fierce local opposition.
According to Harnnarong Yaowalers, chair of Thai Water Partnership, the state sponsored-draft follows other draconian forest and land laws by giving total ownership and management authority over water resources to state agencies concerned. Local people only follow their orders.
In the people-sponsored draft water bill, however, water belongs to people and its use must be approved by local communities.
The challenge now is how to strike a compromise with the officialdom while insisting on locals having a say in water management.
The national water management committee, which issues short- and long-term water management strategies, must have at least 50% local representation, insisted the water security activist.
Their strategies, meanwhile, must derive from input from river basin and tributary basin committees to ensure bottom-up policies. Like the national committee, these local bodies must consist of at least 50% local representatives who must be elected by their organisations.
It is widely known that government agencies are pro-business. There are already many laws that allow state agencies to punish polluters and those who "stole" public water for own use, yet officials remain silent, if not because of money and power then out of fear of their own safety.
Will this water management law help?
Under the water management scheme, the military government has revived many megaprojects that will destroy river basins and forest areas. Will this draft, which will be in the government's way, be approved?
Mr Harnnarong heaved a heavy sigh. Civil society and grassroots environmental groups already scored a win by convincing the Department of Water Resources to revise the water draft from the people sector's input. But there are many struggles ahead.
Even when the draft passes cabinet approval, no one knows how much its content will be changed by the conservative Council of State, the government's legal arm.
And even if it makes it to the National Legislative Assembly, there is no guarantee either that the draft will not be butchered. It has happened to many pro-people laws before. "We have to make sure that there are representatives from civil society to defend our stance on the scrutinising committee," said Mr Harnnarong.
Protecting nature and locals' rights is a continuing struggle, he said. It does not end with particular legislation. But people's organisations do need pro-people laws to help their work. "We need strong communities to protect the environment. Working for a water law that respects local voices and knowledge is part of our work toward that goal," he said.
Sanitsuda Ekachai is former editorial pages editor, Bangkok Post.
