Part 1

• From global to local, mental health promotion in the word of climate change and disaster Bussabong Wisetpholchai ThaiHealth Academy, Thai Health Promotion Foundation Chatwut Wangwon Nantawat Sitdhiraksa Saijai Chotigaram

  Mental health refers not just to mental illness, mental problems, and mental disorders, but also includes states of mental wellness, emotional resilience and psychosocial wellbeing. Psychosocial wellbeing is the interplay between social and psychological conditions that shape human welfare; a broad term which encompasses the states of being mentally healthy, experiencing mental problems, and mental illness.

  How does climate change impact mental health?
  Climate change has been identified as the biggest threat to global population health. Increasing heat waves, air pollution, extreme weather events, wildfires, droughts, vector-borne diseases, nutrition, and water scarcity driven by climate change, will impact mental health directly and indirectly. For example, crop-damaging temperatures increase suicide rates in India
  particularly among farmers (Carleton, 2017). From the World Bank report in 2021, Thailand faces high exposure to natural hazard risks and is ranked 81st out of 191 countries by the 2019 Inform Risk Index, Thailand is recognized as highly vulnerable to climate variability and change due to increasing natural hazards, such as heavy rainfall, floods, and droughts, as well as sea level rise impacts the country’s coasts, while psychiatric patients in Thailand increased from 1.3 million in 2015 to 2.3 million in 2021.The impacts on vulnerable populations, and overarching existential threat to human societies make climate change a particular concern for community mental health care. Thus, coordinating mitigation and adaptation solutions both locally and more broadly will be core tasks of the community mental health care. For the reason that each community faces different impacts from global warming. Increasing awareness of the importance of understanding and addressing mental health promotion prompts us to think more widely about the impact of climate change on the broader determinants of mental health. In Thailand we ran Community Mental Health Promotor Project, community and societal level actions, the key mental health and mental health promotion impacts and implications of the most probable climate change scenarios and the implications of climate change for the key social, economic determinants of mental health and community wellbeing, and the implications for particular localities and for the most vulnerable and excluded population groups has been explored. Moreover, we found that, the key mental health and mental health promotion impacts of proposed climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies are the key success of community mental health promotion. In the long-term, hope and morale in the community about climate change is deeply intertwined with mental health promotion. For the community to be less pessimistic about the future requires a realistic understanding of what climate change means and what can be done. On the other hand, the challenges of climate change adaptation may creative ideas and actions in ways that transform and strengthen the resilience and creativity of individuals and communities for mental health promotion.

• Mainstreaming Narratives: Women on the Forefront of Sustaining Livelihood in Climate Change Adaptation (A Narration from West Kalimantan, Indonesia) Laili Khairnur Gemawan Muhammad Isa Gemawan Ridho Faizinda Gemawan

  Since, socially and culturally, women are at the forefront of agricultural practice, they are the most vulnerable groups in the face of climate change. Climate change, driven by deforestation, extractive mining, and palm oil expansion, has led to significant habitat loss and increased carbon emissions. Over the past decade, West Kalimantan has witnessed the booming expansion of oil palm plantations, which has caused extensive damage to rainforests and peatlands. Extractive mining has also been blooming and has threatened forest-based management and land use by local communities. Local communities, dependent on these ecosystems for their livelihood despite constraints and challenges, devised their resilience and collectively organised actions to confront the threat of lessening access and resources of a sustainable livelihood.

  This article presents empirical experiences in enhancing the role of community groups towards sustainable village livelihood in response to changing systems and challenges and threats to livelihoods in West Kalimantan. Local groups of women have upgraded their capacity at the grassroots to protect their livelihood sources. We advocate climate change adaptation to promote adopting agroecological practices, with local and friendly agricultural practices for the local food production system and short-supply chain of food production and to provide resilience to ever-changing land use. However, women are not the primary determinant of every decision. Women tend to be excluded from access, decisions and welfare benefits in the ownership and management of natural resources, both by the state policy system and the patriarchal culture practice in the society. Furthermore, despite their enormous wealth of knowledge and capacity, policymakers ignore female farmers, face gender discrimination, are often affected by poverty and hunger and are threatened because of the widespread conversion of land, for example, to oil palm plantations, extractive industries and industrial large scale food estate and plantation.

  A women’s group, consisting of several members from the Setara, one of the women’s association, holds bimonthly meetings to discuss the protection of agricultural land in order to maintain sources of livelihood and the environment to remain sustainable as well as an effort to realize prosperity. They managed to grow on to protect approximately 110.2 acres consisting of plantations and rice fields, the majority of which are in peat areas. Protecting this land is considered important for them in order to prevent the conversion of agricultural land into large-scale plantations, as well as maintaining the function of agricultural land as a source of food and a source of livelihood for village communities. The main thing is to avoid threats and damage to land as a source of community livelihood. Meanwhile, the association also strives to contribute to the environment, and economic independence cannot be separated from attention. One of them is by discussing basic economic activities through the formation of a joint venture called Mentari Senja. This joint venture is engaged in savings and loan businesses, businesses in the fields of agriculture, plantations and fisheries.

  Women’s role in food production has been storing knowledge about cultivating, processing, and preserving local crop varieties and maintaining natural balance through sustainable agricultural practice. Women farmers have played their unique role in feeding their families and supporting their communities to protect their livelihoods for generations, especially at the village level. The worsening quality of the environment around the village due to changes in forest areas and conversion of land into large plantation areas, as well as mining, have affected the quality of life of people living in the villages. The situation has caused women to fall even further, the rapidly decreasing supply of food, medicines, and spices from the forest has become a treasure trove for women in Kalimantan and most other forested islands in Indonesia. As a result of the conversion of land to non-food agriculture, the dependence on food, medicines, and spices from outside the village is getting higher, making the cost of living more expensive in the countryside. The situation has also been nurtured by the belief of most government officials from the village to the national level that only men can manage natural, forest and agrarian resources. At the village level, the power of the village law has yet to be fully utilized to build community strength in natural resource management issues. The Village Law’s benefits and opportunities should be combined with other regulations due to natural resources protection and women’s empowerment. Thus, system changes need to be carried out by utilizing gender-responsive policies, ensuring involvement in every decision-making process, strengthening women’s leadership and entrepreneurship, collaborating with various parties and impactful collective actions.

Part 2

• Impacts of climate change on agricultural adaptation strategies in Nepal Cholnapa Anukul Samridhi Kharel Sayamol Charoenratana Human Security and Equality Research Unit, CUSRI, Chulalongkorn University

  Climate change poses a growing threat to rural food production and demands innovative solutions. To ensure food security, rural household farmers in Nepal must adopt new practices to cope with the changing environment. This study aims to address the impacts of agricultural climate change adaptation strategies in Nepal. The research empirically analyzed climate hazards, adaptation strategies, and local adaptation plans in Mangalsen Municipality, Achham District, Sudurpashchim Province, Nepal. This study used a purposive sampling of household lists categorized as resource-rich, resource-poor, and intermediate households. The analysis used primary data from 110 household surveys conducted among six focus groups, and 30 informants were selected for interviews through purposive random sampling. Climate change significantly impacts rainfall patterns and temperature, decreasing agriculture productivity and increasing household vulnerability. To overcome these negative impacts, it is crucial to implement measures such as efficient management of farms and livestock. A comprehensive analysis of Nepalese farmers’ adaptation strategies to climate change has been conducted, revealing important insights into their coping mechanisms. By examining the correlation between farmers’ strategies and the role of the local government, practical policies can be developed for farmers at the local level. This study represents a significant breakthrough in our understanding of this issue within the context of Nepal. It has been conclusively demonstrated that securing land tenure or land security and adopting appropriate agricultural methods, such as agroforestry, can enable Nepalese households to cope with the effects of climate change effectively.

• From Prayuth to Srettha’s Climate Politics: Same Steps on the River? Thasita Supatanarungsan Sukhothaithammathirat Open University, STOU

  From global warming to the boiling planet, environmental issues, especially climate change, which unarguably has major effects on people’ livelihoods, have been one of the most pressing concerns. Southeast Asian is one of the most vulnerable regions to extreme environmental issues. The region also has a variety of political regimes, including democratic, competitive authoritarian or illiberalism and authoritarian. To tackle environmental situations, scholars have been debating on the capacity of the regimes tackling environmental issues. Is authoritarian government’s iron grip on power able to cool down the world, or does democratic government offer a more effective solution to the problems?

  Political landscape in Thailand has changed recently. The country had been under the authoritarian cloak of democracy for almost decades since the military coup in 2014 by General Prayuth Chan-O-Cha, who later became the 29th Thai prime minister. During that time, the environment was claimed to be the core legitimacy of the regime or ‘eco-authoritarian’. The military-led government positioned itself as the protector or guardian of the environment by launching the ‘Bring Back Forest’ scheme to protect the conservative areas. Moreover, the cabinet agreed to establish ‘The Department of Climate Change and Environment’ focusing on climate-related issues. On the international level, Prayuth’s government had agreed to environmental protection schemes to gain international respect. After a decade, the May 2023 election paved the way for the political-new face, ‘Moving Forward Party’ (MFP), as the leading party to form the government. Some scholars noted the period as the dawn of democracy. As an illiberal legacy in the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand 2017, however, MFP party became the opposition in parliament while the government was comprised of the military-conservative party and the second-ranked populist Pheu Thai Party (PTP). This coalition government reflected the resurgence of old politics. The leading figure of the government is the new face, ‘Srettha Thawesin’, the 30th prime minister. After 100 days in the cabinets, the ex-businessman, Srettha positions himself as ‘salesman’ opening the global investment in Thailand. Economic-driven policy seems to be the priority of the government, while the position on environmental-related issues is blurred. However, the liberal public sphere during this time enhances the activity of climate-related NGOs.

  This article focuses on how types of regimes affect the politics of climate change by comparing Prayuth Chan-O-Cha’s authoritative regime and Srettha Thawesin’s democratic cabinets, which some may argue are still under the cloak of authoritative. The government policy, government policy statement, and newspaper serve as the foundation for the analysis. The article will be divided into two parts: First, the theoretical approach to the effect of regime types on environmental responses. Second, the analysis of Prayuth Cha-O-Cha and Srettha Thaweesin’s positions to climate change policy. The article argues that the transition from Prayuth to Srettha’s cabinets does not significantly affect the climate change response because of centralized bureaucracy.

Abstract