New things are happening at ISDSI.

Good things!

Check it out here.

Students hiking in Mae Hong Son province.

Risk management is an important part of any good program, especially those that are running in an international/developing country setting, and those who are working in wilderness/experiential education.  At ISDSI we have been students of risk management since the beginning, and feel that it is an important component to both our overall program, and part of what we teach our students.

One of the best places to learn about risk management is at the annual Wilderness Risk Management Conference, but on by NOLS, Outward Bound and SCA.  Their focus is “Practical Solutions for Challenging Issues.”  We’ve  attended the WRMC a couple of times, and have published a paper in the WRMC 2004 proceedings, “The Objective Hazards of Culture: Risk Management in an International Setting.”

ISDSI (Ajaan Mark and Pi Ben) will presenting a workshop at the 2010 WRMC at Colorado Springs: “Crossing the Border Matters: Practical Risk Management in Developing Countries.”  Here is the description:

International wilderness trips are growing in popularity, especially to “non-traditional” settings in developing countries. However, even experienced wilderness leaders and risk managers may be caught unprepared by differences in legal systems, cultural expectations, and a sometimes radically changed risk management terrain. This practical hands-on session will examine in detail key issues and concerns for working in developing countries, appropriate for trip leaders, risk managers and expedition members.

We’ve put together a web page for folks attending the workshop, and will use the page to collect ISDSI specific information on risk management.  This won’t be a comprehensive list of papers on risk management (that’s even hard if you’re doing a google search), but rather supporting documentation and specific information related to the WRMC workshop and how we approach risk management at ISDSI.

Jump over to the new Risk Management page to see what we’re starting…

Great news out of Bangkok.  On very short notice, the governor of Bangkok pulled together a “Together We Can” day on Sunday, and thousands of people — Thai and foreign both — came out to sweep, scrub, pick up trash, and clean up the city.  It was an amazingly diverse crowd, and a sign of hope in the midst of the recent crisis.

Whoops. Thinking too much in the surf zone, Trang, Thailand.

When you are in a quickly changing situation like the political unrest in Thailand over the last few days and weeks, it pays to be flexible and responsive. We know from sea kayaking, paddle surfing and whitewater canoeing during our Expedition Field Courses at ISDSI that you need to be flexible, relaxed and aware to respond the best. When you get stiff, or freeze as you try and remember your checklist and details, is when you fail — flipping your boat, falling off, or failing to run the rapids.

Study abroad is no different.

When beginners learn a skill, they are focused on the lists — trying to remember the sequences, items, and events. With practice comes unconscious skill — you’re thinking about the movement and responding to the environment. In risk management and assessment, you need both — a list of principles that guide what you do, and the skill to apply them to fluid environments.

We’ve seen that a lot in the last few days and weeks in Thailand.

At ISDSI’s study abroad semesters in Thailand, we focus on training our American students to be culturally competent — not memorizing lists of do’s and don’ts, but rather learning Thai culture and language well enough to understand the “why” behind actions. Lists are only good for the situations you know about, but don’t necessarily guide you in what to do in new and unique situations.

At ISDSI our instructors work through lists, plans and contingencies — keeping daily course logs, training as Wilderness First Responders, working through scenarios and discussing what to do “if” — “if” being a very big, and ultimately unbounded category. However, rather than inflexible checklists or formulas, our focus is on learning how to appropriately combine three things: principles + resources + judgment.

Working on the flow chart and decision tree -- it doesn't work without good judgment.

Joe Brockington, associate provost for international programs at Kalamazoo College, one of our key partners, says in “Effective Crisis Management” that a crisis is an emergency without a plan. We would add that without good judgment, skill, and experience, a plan alone is worthless — and will quickly turn into a crisis.

Faced with a situation like the protests and later riots in Bangkok, the principles of how to ensure student well-being is paramount.  What resources do we have?  How can we combine them in the most appropriate way?  For example, the final capstone course (Coastal Ecology and Culture) had planned on having the students transit through Bangkok by train, and spend a day at the huge Chatujak Market doing a survey of coastal resources available at the market (from tropical fish to seashells). With the escalating tensions in Bangkok, we felt it would be better to avoid the city, and travel direct to the field site by bus — a decision that was easy to make, since we had the resources and experience to contact a reliable bus company, charter our own bus, and ensure that the students would arrive safely.  Likewise, during the tsunami that hit Thailand, we were able to contact our students since we have lists of their mobile phone numbers, and knew where they were.

We’re hoping that things continue to calm down in Bangkok, and it looks like that is what is happening. But we don’t expect that it will be the last emergency we’ll face at ISDSI.  In the meantime, we’ll continue to practice so we can be flexible and respond to the normal turbulence of living and working in Southeast Asia.

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For more information, see:

Effective Crisis Management by Joe Brockington.

Health, Safety, & Crisis Response by NAFSA.

The Objective Hazards of Culture outlining more of the ISDSI approach to risk management, including a list of questions for people involved in leading and managing study abroad programs.

If you follow the news, you will have heard that the on-going protests in Bangkok have been broken up, but not without extensive loss of life and damage to the city — and damage  to the country as a whole.  Many of the grievances expressed during the protests point out deep divisions in this highly unequal society.

Right now, the protests have ended, and most things have calmed down outside of Bangkok.  In Bangkok they are still dealing with arson, bombs left by the protesters, and protesters firing on residents, soldiers, and others. (The protests were not all as peaceful as you would think by listening to CNN — the protesters had automatic weapons, grenades, RPGs, etc., beyond the petrol bombs and arson.  But they used them at night, and journalists had a difficult time getting good photos. And like with a lot of media, if there’s no photo, it doesn’t exist.)

On Wednesday, the day the government overran the protest site, there were scattered protests throughout the country, including Chiang Mai. Small groups burned tires on one of the bridges, burned two fire trucks, and started a fire at the nearby governor’s residence.   Two of our instructors, Pi Ben and Pi Pui, went out to gather some first hand information, see what was going on, talk with some of the people there, and to take a few photos.

Looking south, with tires burning near Narawat Bridge. Not a lot of people around, and the fires didn't last long. Just down the road is where they burned two fire trucks.

The next day, Thursday, that was all cleaned up, and the small protest stages near the railroad station and in the center of the old city were being dismantled.  By Thursday afternoon, in Chiang Mai there was little evidence of the fires and unrest at all.

The same intersection on Friday. Pretty much back to normal.

What is next?  I’ve included several articles and one video report below that start to answer the questions about how a country known for being sanuk and sabai (fun and relaxed) could have such violent social unrest.

There are real and deep division in Thailand between the haves and have-nots. One of the things that is so powerful about study abroad with ISDSI is seeing first hand how marginalized communities are building a sustainable future, even in the face of such great inequality. Thailand has done very well, and reduced absolute poverty greatly over the last few decades.  But not everyone has benefited equally. The social structures and power relationships of hierarchy and patronage are starting to fray, as people want a voice and a real say in their future, and don’t want to just do what they are told, or carry out their assigned role, anymore.

Real participation is powerful, but working out the limits to that, what is appropriate, how it works, how to express grievances, etc. is still not yet settled. And like many places, the powerful don’t want to listen to the powerless.

As for what is next, we will continue to monitor the situation, and keep aware through our networks of NGOs and activists and others in the communities where we work. We have contingency plans for each course, and are willing to change course locations or curriculum if we need to.  We’re certainly going to spend a lot of time in our seminars next semester examining how these most recent events impact the society and communities where our students are learning.

As for Thailand, things are never really going to be the same.  An on-going insurgency isn’t likely, but social upheaval will continue for a long time. The divisions are out in the open, and our hope is that those rifts can be bridged and healing can happen. Part of the attraction of study abroad in a country like Thailand is that it is such a dynamic place.  Sometimes it is chaotic.

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Here are some sources for further analysis and news:

Protest leaders surrender as soldiers storm barricades (BBC video, including armed protesters)

Wounds will take a long time to heal (Bangkok Post editorial)

Sacrifices in Bangkok (Analysis in the Wall Street Journal by Pasuk and Baker, authors, historians and political analysts.)

Thailand’s Farmers Have Stood Up (Wall Street Journal by Andrew Walker, from Australia National University)

Bangkok: how did it come to this? (Andrew Walker, Nicholas Farrelly from ANU)

Thai PM committed to reconciliation but no poll offer (Reuters)

Uneasy peace in Thailand, uncertainties lie ahead (Reuters)

Breaking News! (An excellent analysis of the flaws in CNN’s coverage)

It is really difficult at times to figure out what is going on in a place far away (like Thailand for some folks) when there is a big photogenic crisis.  Great photos and great video of a protest, burning tires, or other chaos don’t always capture what is really going on.

This is especially the case with the protests and government crackdown in Bangkok.  Bangkok is a HUGE city of 12 million people.  While the protests cover several square kilometers, for most people in the city there is little direct impact.  In other places, like Chiang Mai, there is even less apparent impact.  People everywhere are aware of what is going on, and share the concerns people elsewhere in the world have for the violence and rioting that is going on in Bangkok.

But watching CNN and the BBC gives a distorted picture of what life is like (not even to get into the bias that has crept into their reporting).

However, CNNGo has had some great articles about what is going on in Thailand, behind the scenes, and for the “normal life” that most of us living in Thailand are going through daily.  It is worth a read.

Here are some excerpts from their latest article, Thailand struggles as Bangkok burns

Images of flaming tires, blood-covered bodies, armed soldiers and grenade riddled buildings may dominate local and international media these days, but in the rest of the Thailand — and even most parts of Bangkok — life is carrying on without any signs of the clashes.

That’s not to say residents aren’t suffering, particularly in the country’s major resort areas where international tourists are scarce…“It’s such a shame that travel alerts don’t always distinguish between the safe parts and the spots where snipers and tire-burners do their thing,” he says, referring to the many government advisories that warn their citizens to avoid travel not just to Bangkok, but Thailand on the whole. “Rates at four- and five-star resorts on Phuket and along the Andaman coast are likely to be fantastic for travelers in the next few months. If you’ve ever wanted a luxury holiday with all the extras, now’s the time to plan it.”

Chiang Mai: No national crisis here

Up north in Chiang Mai, where support for self-exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is prevalent, there is none of the civil unrest found in Bangkok, says long-time Chiang Mai resident and business owner Andrew Bond.

“Even the usual ongoing protest forum behind Phra Singh Temple by the UDD has been abandoned as most [red shirts] have gone to join the Bangkok group,” Bond explains. “The city is going about its business and uninformed tourists wouldn’t suspect there’s a national crisis.” … Thai Chiang Mai resident Therapat Poomstitpong agrees with Bond, saying that the only evidence he’s seen of the protests is what appears on TV screens and the front pages of the daily newspapers, but unfortunately the tourists are staying away.

“It’s sad, as there aren’t many foreign tourists. Everyone is so tired of the violence, most of us want it to stop,” the ice cream vendor says.

Jump over to their site, and check out what they’re saying.  It is a good look behind the headlines.

We sent this out as an email to our study abroad community mailing list of partner schools, faculty, alumni and others, and wanted to put it up on our blog so folks can find it if they are looking for more information.

As I’m sure all of you are aware, the on-going protests in Bangkok have turned violent, and the US State Department has issued a Travel Warning, as an update to its earlier Travel Alert.

Our spring semester ended on Friday (May 14th), and at this point there should be no impact on our upcoming fall 2010 study abroad program.  However, I wanted to update you on what we are seeing in Thailand, and to give context and/or correct some of the information that is being reported in the media.

BACKGROUND

The protestors (known as the “red shirts”/United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship or UDD) are supporters of former prime minister Taksin, who is has been convicted of corruption after he fled the country, and is now living in the Middle East. Taksin was popular with many rural farmers in the North and Northeast for his patronage and populist programs of cheap loans and health care, but was criticized for being corrupt, vote buying, and significant human rights violations.  The UDD claims the current government (brought into power through a parliamentary vote rather than direct elections) is not legitimate. Taksin is largely (but not singularly) directing the protests from abroad, and the demands of the protesters have grown to include other grievances of the rural poor.  As with all politics in Thailand, it is complex.

The protests that are in the news are centered on an area in central Bangkok, and have been going on for almost two months.  This is an area of several blocks, with shopping malls, embassies, and residential areas.  Like in other cities, in Chiang Mai there are a couple of stages up (one near the railroad station, and one in the center of the old city behind a temple), but that is about it — nothing like the protests in Bangkok, and very limited in scope and attendance (most tourists and a surprising number of residents aren’t even aware they exist).

Last week the Thai government and the UDD negotiated a reconciliation plan.  After agreeing to it, the UDD increased their demands. The government then withdrew the reconciliation plan. The UDD leadership is splintered, and many of the moderate leaders have left, leaving more radical leaders largely (but not completely) in charge.  Under increasing pressure from business leaders and middle and upper class Bangkok residents, the government moved in troops on Thursday to cordon off the protest area and not allow additional protestors to join the protests.  The government has also declared a state of emergency in several provinces (including Chiang Mai) in order to be able to respond quickly in the case of unrest in those areas.

CURRENT SITUATION

Over the last three days there has been increasing violence from both sides, with the Thai army firing tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition. The protestors are also heavily armed (it isn’t quite as one-sided as you’d think from watching CNN — the hard core protestors and other groups have weapons).

The unrest, however, has remained limited to a few square blocks in central Bangkok. Unfortunately, that is where a lot of the diplomatic community lives, and where the US and other embassies are located. Those embassies have closed, and the US and others have moved the families living in the area to outside of Bangkok. This has been reported in the news as the US Embassy “evacuating families from Thailand” which is not correct.

The Travel Warning urges people to not go to Bangkok, and defer nonessential travel to Thailand.  This is the same advice that we have already given our students who are here, and have asked all of them as they leave Thailand to avoid Bangkok.

For the rest of Thailand, including Chiang Mai and most of Bangkok, at this point there isn’t much impact on daily life.  More TVs are on, more people listening to the radio, more people online and following Twitter reports about what is going on in Bangkok.  We have American friends living just around the corner from the protest in Bangkok, and they said life goes on pretty much as normal, even though everyone is concerned and keeping an eye on the news.

CURRENT PLANS

For ISDSI, we are saddened that both the government and UDD have resorted to violence, and hope for a quick resolution to the conflict.  Some of the grievances of the protestors are important to address, and I hope they can be untangled from the support for the former prime minister and personal vendettas of some in the UDD leadership.

At this point we don’t anticipate that this will impact our fall semester, since we don’t have courses in Bangkok, and transiting the airport in Bangkok remains safe. Many of the students departing are leaving directly from Chiang Mai International Airport via Korea or Taiwan (already the preferred routes for most people who live in Chiang Mai since it is easier), and that remains an option for students arriving in the fall.  We have a good network of information, I am a warden with the US Consulate in Chiang Mai, and we have excellent connections with communities and NGOs throughout the country.  So we will continue to monitor the situation and plan accordingly.

Please feel free to email me if you have any questions.
-Mark A. Ritchie, Ph.D., Executive Director, ISDSI

This coming week the Copenhagen summit will be going on, from December 7-18.  The goal of this summit is to follow up on the work done during the Kyoto agreements, and to try and limit global warming.

The stakes are incredibly high.  Pressure, slander and huge amounts of money and disinformation are being thrown in the way of any binding agreements, as oil companies and their allies try again to introduce doubt into the debate (hacking into scientists’ private email and distorting what they said is just part of it).

The science is clear, settled, and overwhelming. If drastic cuts are not made in global emissions of CO2 and other gasses that contribute to global warming, we are headed towards a global catastrophe. We are already seeing massive changes due to anthropogenic climate change, and it is only going to get worse.  Feedback loops in climate are making even the worst case scenarios of only a couple of years look like underestimates of how bad it can get.  And it will get very very bad.

If we can get back to 350 ppm CO2 (we’re around 384 now), there is hope.  It will be a benefit to our economies to move away from oil, and the opportunity for business for clean and renewable energy and technologies are huge.

But the challenge is significant.

I’ve included here a tracker showing real time what the negotiations are working towards. Below that are some good links to learn more.

Let’s hope history is made in the next few days, or future generations will point to this time as an opportunity lost.

Homepage for the conference: http://en.cop15.dk/

One of our students coming in the spring, Taylor Cantril, is at Copenhagen.  He mentioned in the comments several blogs worth noting, especially deppcopenhagen.wordpress.com and thecopenhagenquestions.wordpress.com

Good summary and detailed current report on the state of the science and current situation: Copenhagen Diagnosis

The best online discussion of the science is at Real Climate.  This includes links to basic science information (see these lectures which are particularly good).

The best discussion of the politics around climate change from the perspective of an engaged and passionate scientist is at Climate Progress.

Great news via Grist. Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has just endorsed what many scientists have been saying for a long time – to avoid a climate catastrophe we need to aim for 350 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not 450 as earlier determined in the IPCC report.

From AFP, “Top U.N. climate scientist backs big CO2 cuts, 350-ppm goal“:

“As chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], I cannot take a position because we do not make recommendations,” said Rajendra Pachauri when asked if he supported calls to keep atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations below 350 parts per million (ppm).

“But as a human being I am fully supportive of that goal. What is happening, and what is likely to happen, convinces me that the world must be really ambitious and very determined at moving toward a 350 target,” he told AFP in an interview.

The article goes on to note:

Even at current CO2 levels of 385-to-390 ppm, severe impacts from climate change—rising sea levels, drought, violent storms—have started and are likely to get worse, experts say.

Many scientists also worry that carbon pollution has damaged Earth’s capacity to absorb CO2 and triggered events—the shrinking Arctic ice cap, the decay of the Greenland ice sheet, methane release from permafrost—that will drive global warming on their own.

This is very important, and it further supports the goal of 350 ppm, and while challenging, it is still (hopefully) reachable, at least from a scientific / technical standpoint, if not necessarily from a political standpoint.

Bill McKibbon at Grist notes:

When Jim Hansen and other scientists looked at phenomena like the Arctic ice melt of the last two summers, they produced new data demonstrating that 350 ppm is the bottom line. But it’s been hard to get that news out to the powers that be. So today it comes as enormous and welcome news that Pachauri, from his New Delhi office, said that 350 was the number.

For more on this see 350.org.

After a couple of days (and a late night) of entering over 700 ISBN numbers, ISDSI’s library collection is online!

We’ve been wanting to do this for a long time to make our library more accesible for students, instructors, researchers, NGO workers and community members in Chiang Mai, Thailand and Southeast Asia more generally.  We’ve invested a lot of money in getting good quality books and reference materials, and hope that this will make it easier for folks to search our holdings, see what we have, and be able to borrow books for thier own studies, research or work in sustainability.

To jump to our collection, go to http://www.librarything.com/catalog/isdsi.  You can also go to our Resources page where you can click on the right sidebar to get to the list.

Once at the list, you can browse by collection, or show all collections to sort and sift through the books.  There is also an excellent search function – so if you know what you are looking for you can see if we have it.

If you’re in Chiang Mai and looking for good books on ecology, agriculture, sustainability and other topics, feel free to stop by! Our library is available most days from 9 AM to 5 PM, Monday through Friday.

Special thanks to the folks at LibraryThing for providing the software and community of other users!  If you have a small (or large) collection of books, it is a great way to manage it online (sort of like Gmail for books…).