To Move or Not to Move? Drought-Related Internal Migration and Voluntary Immobility Among the Hmong Forest Community in Chiang Rai, Northern Thailand

Abstract

AbstractOver four decades, from the 1980s to the 2020s, Thailand has experienced a severe and prolonged drought, primarily attributed to the effects of climate change. Consequently, this drought has led to a significant and pervasive shortage of water resources across the country. Drought has substantial environmental, social, and economic ramifications on farmers, manifesting as diminished agricultural and forest productivity, depleted water reserves, heightened vulnerability to wildfires, and consequent losses in income, food security, well-being, and population displacement. The region of Northern Thailand has seen the emergence of drought as a distinct slow-onset calamity in the country. Chiang Rai is characterised by its extensive forested areas and agricultural landscapes, which provide residence for at least ten ethnic minority groups from neighbouring countries, including Hmong. The survival of these ethnic minority people is dependent on the agricultural production they rely upon. Therefore, climate change has emerged as a catalyst for forced migration. This study examines the social implications of climate-related drought in the Wiang Kaen district, which the Hmong ethnic group inhabits. The analysis focuses on three main areas: (1) the impact of drought on the community’s forced migration patterns; (2) the disparities in perceptions of human mobility between older and younger generations in response to the drought; and (3) the factors influencing well-being, such as food security and adaptive capacity, in the context of climate-related drought. The study reveals that climate-induced migration has become one of the climate change adaptation efforts, especially for economic reasons. The internal migration has patterned at the moving from rural to urban areas in joining the informal sector. Although this effort is positively adopted, the disparity in migration perspective is distinctly reflected between older and younger generations, with particular emphasis on food security and availability. Food sufficiency for the household is considered the benchmark of well-being for the Hmong elderly per se, while the younger generation weightens the currency for sustainable well-being. In addition to climate change adaptation, the older generation has demonstrated their ability to cope with climate-induced drought by using traditional or local knowledge in managing forests and agriculture, acknowledged as a kind of resilience rather than resorting to migration, while the younger generation chooses migration as an adaptation strategy. Therefore, this study acknowledges the significance of climate-induced human mobility as a pressing worldwide issue that poses climate change adaptation for sustainable development, although it has been differently perceived by different generations. Hence, the formulation of policies based on climate change adaptation and resilience by both generations is being undertaken.