Back to the land: Thai forest draws young green farmers

MAE THA, Thailand – Like many locals, Matthana Abhaimoon left rural Thailand to study in the city. Unlike most, she chose to come back — and fight for her right to farm in the forest as her forefathers had done.

After a 20-year campaign, residents of Mae Tha won a community forest title for their cluster of seven villages, joining a small but growing back-to-the-land movement that is luring young, ecofriendly farmers away from the city.

Under the order, she and about 5,000 villagers can farm some 3,500 acres inside a protected forest in Mae Tha district, a mountainous region in northern Thailand which lies close to the region’s biggest city of Chiang Mai.

It is no small victory in a country rife with old disputes over who has rights to land and its natural resources.

“Young people have new ideas about the environment, sustainability and food security, and they want to…