Abstract
Dansai District is located in Loei Province, Northeast Thailand, rich in natural resources and composes of many kinds of forests, such as evergreen forests and mixed-deciduous forests. The objectives of the study are to determine the diversity of mushrooms and investigate the values of the forest influencing the community way of life and exploration of problems and guidelines for developing the forest along with sufficiency economy theory. The study includes compilation of data from past studies, semi-structured interview with the local communities and discussion with focus group. The survey was done once a month during the rainy season from May to August in 2012 and 2013. The results of the survey revealed 56 species belonging to 26 families, 38 genera. A total of 52 mushroom species belong to Basidiomycota, while 4 species belong to Ascomycota. The community forest remains fertile due to the conservation effort by the community leaders and a group of villagers. A community forestry board were set up to conserve the forest and proposed to the government at Dansai Vocational Community College to officially declare the forest as a formal community forest. The conservation management relied upon the kinship relations, seniority, and religious belief along with the enforcing authorities. If an encroacher is found, he would be fined according to the regulations and defamed publicly. However, encroachment still exists. In general, community forest is valuable and directly affected the villagers' ways of life in which they could generate income from the forest, particularly reducing the daily expenses and promoting their socio-cultural perspective.
Highlights
The remaining forest area in Loei Province, Thailand is estimated at approximately 7,893.54 km2 or around 4,933,462.5 Rai which consists of dry evergreen forests and high mountains at about 300–600 m above the mean sea level (Information Center, Loei Technical College, 2012)
Dansai is recognised as one of the areas that are noted for their greatest abundance of mushrooms, in which the villagers gain their living by foraging for wild edible mushrooms
Since Thailand emphasised economic growth through exploitation of its rich natural resources base at the expense of environmental and social consequences, Dansai has encountered a rapid decline in wild edible mushroom populations
Summary
The remaining forest area in Loei Province, Thailand is estimated at approximately 7,893.54 km or around 4,933,462.5 Rai (in 2012) which consists of dry evergreen forests and high mountains at about 300–600 m above the mean sea level (Information Center, Loei Technical College, 2012). Since Thailand emphasised economic growth through exploitation of its rich natural resources base at the expense of environmental and social consequences, Dansai has encountered a rapid decline in wild edible mushroom populations. The environmental degradation due to this exploitation has been devastating and the loss of large areas of forest has left rural people poorer, less self-sufficient, and with fewer opportunities. With this regard, sustainable development for improving the quality of life for the villagers while maintaining mushroom populations is needed. This study was carried out to investigate the existing biodiversity of wild edible mushrooms along with the villagers’ way of life and the conservation effort made by the community in Dansai to establish the strategies for sustainable exploitation of wild edible mushrooms and to improve the villager’s quality of life
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