Our Local Partners
Track of the Tiger T.R.D.
Pang Soong Lodge
C.M.I.S. International School
Respected Scientists & Academics
The Huay Kaew School
The villagers of Ban Mae Lai
Track of the Tiger T.R.D.
Track of the Tiger T.R.D. as the concessionaire must design, and develop the nature trails attraction using volunteer labour and funding as well as corporate and institutional donations.
The company must also market and operate the trails attraction effectively, ensuring that the village community benefits from trail revenue fees paid, and village guide fees earned, as well as undertaking to develop the capacity of the ‘new generation’ of village children to work on, and eventually manage the attraction.
The Pang Soong Lodge
Outdoor Education & Research Centre
The Pang Soong Lodge Outdoor Education & Research Centre was a privately owned retreat before being redesigned to accommodate Track of the Tiger T.R.D’s target S.A.V.E. market groups. The Lodge will be part-subsidizing the accommodation and meals for the students and staff attending the VWB run Eco-English Camps.
Note* S.A.V.E. = Scientific, Academic, Volunteer, Educational.
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C.M.I.S – Chiang Mai International School
The second oldest international school in Thailand is one of our main educational programme development partners. Teachers from the school work closely with us on developing life science, biology, and environmental studies, as well as providing students (themselves accruing community service credits) whilst acting as assistants to foreign teachers on our Eco-English programmes.
Respected Scientists and Academics
To achieve our goals of reversing deforestation, increasing the biodiversity and improving livelihoods in the Ban Mae Lai area, and of recording the changes that occur naturally, or that our direct efforts bring, the assistance of scientists is needed to develop these studies. The Pang Soong Lodge, Outdoor Education & Research Centre offers an excellent base, and full logistical support for scientific studies.
We are particularly keen to implement studies that can be continued, with minimal training, by local people, volunteer and visiting school or university students. The VWB Initiative will provide assistance with information for grant applications, please contact us for more information.
The Huay Kaew School
Huay Kaew School is located in the foothills of Doi Lohn, which is approximately a 45-minute drive east of Chiang Mai City and a 20 minute drive from Pang Soong Lodge Outdoor Education & Research Centre. Huay Kaew is unique in that it runs from nursery to secondary school and hosts approximately 400 children from eight villages in the region, some of which have to travel quite far to get to Huay Kaew as they are too small to justify their own school.
The majority of the students come from farming families that grow seasonal crops such as cha miang (fermented chewing tea), coffee, rice, beans and corn.
Some families also cultivate and sell trees for use in commercial landscaping activities in new developments of Chiang Mai city and the surrounding area. Others supplement their income by obtaining ad hoc day labor jobs.
The Government of Thailand provides funding to a particular school based on the number of children that are attending that school weighed against the total number of citizens in the district. Given current trends in the local economy, many villagers in the area are migrating to city centers in search of more lucrative forms of income. Due to this decrease of school age children living in the area, Huay Kaew School has received minimal funding from the government. This is despite the fact that it was recently built to host children from a wider catchment area in response to the shut down of other poorly attended schools in the region.
To compound the situation, a classroom and library at Huay Kaew School burnt down last year. While it was replaced, inadequate funding left the area without proper toilet facilities. In response, Track of the Tiger, through its award winning Volunteers Without Border (VWB) initiative, has connected corporate sponsors and volunteers to help fill that gap.
Track of the Tiger T.R.D. and the VWB Initiative have ‘adopted’ the school, and three others nearby, and are in the process of providing full time volunteer ESL language teachers for them, as well as infrastructural and small construction project funding from our volunteer groups and corporate sector clients.
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The villagers of Ban Mae Lai
Ban Mae Lai Village
The Ban Mae Lai village is situated in a well-managed watershed forest, which has a circumference of about 20 km and an area of approximately 30 sq. km. This forest is the primary livelihood resource for the village, which has developed a very complex symbiotic relationship with it. The village consists of 42 homes and approximately 90 inhabitants that are collectively known and the ‘Ban Mae Lai’. Mae Lai, means ‘mother Lai’ – and refers to the name of the mother of Khun Phiyalai – the first headman.
Cultural History
An ethnic group known as ‘Khun Muang’, were originally farmers and hunter gatherers from Chiang Mai valley that where displaced by ethnic groups who moved in from the south, causing them to migrate up to the hills surrounding the valley floor. Through marriage, they absorbed the original inhabitants of mountain area – Kamu (Cambodian) and Lua (Shan) ethnic minorities, and over time established the 4 clusters of houses in a close group along the steep sides of the Mae Lai stream.
Village governance
Headman – Is a democratically elected intermediary between village and government that is up for reelection every five years. If his actions are satisfactory, he will likely serve his community for up to 20 years. Interestingly, there have been 7 headmen in the Mae Lai village since the system began in the late 1890’s.
Village committee – A group of 3 – 4 villagers that support the work of the headman.
Religion
The village is Buddhist, and each adult person contributes app. Baht 30.- per month to a fund that pays for the food for the single monk that presides over village ceremonies.
Livelihood
The villagers are primarily tea farmers that cultivate shade grown tea, meaning it is grown in conjunction with the forest. Recently the government introduced shade grown Arabica coffee (highest quality coffee bean) farming to the area.
They supplement their income by providing casual labour for government projects in the area – road construction etc.
The villagers generally use the land around their households for subsistence farming to grow: coffee, eggplant, banana, pomelo and papaya. Some households have dug ponds in which they raise catfish.
Chaa Mieng
Chaa Mieng is a tea leaf that is fermented to produce traditional sweet or sour pickled leaves used for chewing. Chaa Mieng is unique to Northern Thailand, however is also a slowly dieing tradition despite it being an integral part of Ban Mae Lai culture for over 200 years. As a result, younger generations are consistently leaving the village to find employment in the cities, which poses challenges to the survival of local tradition, culture and the community itself.
Each family owns app. 10 rai of land for farming. The land does not have full title deed and is handed down through the family. Assuming the land is used for planting Chaa Mieng, the family can expect to earn around Baht 5’000 per year.
The Chaa Mieng cultivating, harvesting and fermenting process
1. The harvest period of Chaa Mieng coincides with the regions typical raining season, which is from late April to September. A single villager may collect up to 50 small bundles of tea per day, while working 7 days/week during this time.
2. After harvesting, the 500 g bundles wrapped in bamboo string are carried back to the family home where there is an area below or beside it designated for the fermentation process.
3. Bundles are packed tightly into a wooden or stainless steel barrel. The barrel typically has holes in the bottom to facilitate steam that occurs once it is fully loaded, capped with plastic and placed above a hearth. It is cooked for approximately 2 hours in order to arrest oxidation, preserve color, sterilize and tenderize the leaf.
4. The cooked bundles are then placed into plastic lined cement pickling vats and weighed down with rocks to squeeze out the water.
This entire process occurs every night during the harvesting season.
5. During the 2 – 3 months the tea bundles are in the vat, naturally occurring bacteria that is also found in yogurt, cheese, pickles, vinegar and wine is at work giving the mieng its classic sweet and sour character.
6. Once the tea has completed the fermentation process, it is rebound in fresh bamboo and soaked in brine to prevent mold.
7. Designated middlemen collect the final product and distribute it to local markets throughout Northern Thailand.
8. Chaa Mieng is typically consumed by pulling off a wad from the bundled leaves and adding coconut and /or sugar for a sweeter flavor or salt crystals and / or garlic for a more sour taste. It can also be chewed without adding anything. The duration one chews meing can be as short as a few minutes and as long as 30. Personal preferences dictate whether to spilt or swallow what remains after chewing.
9. Mieng is commonly consumed after meals, but can also play a ceremonial role in the temple, at weddings, funerals and feasts.
The projected future of ban Mae Lai
According to recent socio economic research conducted in the region, the population of Ban Mae Lai is old and has pronounced negative population growth. The village population is in steep decline. In 10 – 20 years, if the declining population trend continues, the community will no longer be viable as a traditional community. The population is estimated to have decreased by 68% over the last three decades.
Villagers cite the following reasons for the declining population:
1. The closing of the village school about 8 years ago. Many families moved so that their children would be closer to school.
2. Many families moved to lowland areas were they could cultivate rice and more valuable crops.
3. Some families moved to be with other family members who had relocated to the towns where higher paying work could be found.
As far back as anyone in the village can remember the villagers have been producing fermented tea as a cash crop. This means that the villagers have been producing goods for a cash-based economy when most upland villages were still practicing subsistence agriculture.
The traditional subsistence agricultural systems and chewing tea production are labor intensive. For that reason large families were desired as labor was always insufficient. As subsistence producers moved towards a more cash/consumer based economy large families can become a financial burden and therefore they may choose to have fewer children. With children having better access to education and more cash to pursue an education, fewer and fewer are available for labor. Many choose not to stay in the village, raise families there and take up the traditional lifestyle as many more possibilities are open to them elsewhere.
One consequence of the aging population and the loss of families with children is the number of people able to work the tea and coffee plantations is decreasing over time. The villagers already tell stories of plantations abandoned by people who have left the village, of plantations which are too far, too steep and therefore too labor intensive to be worked as well of plantations where there simply is not enough labor to gather all of the tea on time. They say that if they did collect all of the tea that they could possibly collect that they would not have enough labor in their families to process it.
The villagers have a revolving fund in the village from which they can borrow money to pay for labor. But some villagers then say that there is more work than there is labor to be found. The cost of importing labor may be prohibitive given the returns.
It is hoped that participation in the VWB project will provide means for community members to remain in the area.
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