Thailand

This dossier explores climate and energy issues in Thailand and Southeast Asia. It contains analyses, features, research, and other multimedia materials from regional experts, academics, journalists, and our partners.

Sitting in front of Songkhla’s city hall, a seaside city in southern Thailand, a young woman dressed in a hijab wrote a letter to the country's prime minister. Choosing each word with care, she called on him "to listen to the stories of the fisherfolk’s children who grew up and bonded with the sea, protected and took care of it." It was in May 2020, two days before a week-long public hearing session for the Chana Industrial Estate project that is poised to transform the quiet fishing villages of Songkhla province into an industrial zone.

At the age of nine, Nalutporn was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy. For the rest of her life, she would use a wheelchair – and for the first part of that life, she had to make it through the Thai educational system. People with disabilities in Thailand have few rights sanctioned – a hot political issue for Nalutporn.

Homophobia, prejudice and hatred marked Patchara Kumchumnan's childhood. It's taken him a few years and some hundred kilometres to escape the prejudice and hatred in his hometown. But, while the scar of discrimination never faded completely, the experience became his driving force to defend the rights of others.

One of the most radical political artists in the Thai scene, 34-year-old Tada Hengsapkul ties together nationalism, often-ugly politics, and the bruises of the Cold War in provocative, thought-provoking art. In the current political climate where police violence against pro-democracy protesters has been increasingly rampant, his past works still ring true.