National Park Officials, monks, community leaders and school children were among the 200 members of Kok Klang Village, in northeastern Thailand’s Sakon Nakhon Province, who gathered together in a community reforestation effort on August 28th, 2015. In total, the group planted about 5,000 trees in the 16-hectare Non Sao Ae community forest, as part of a larger community adaptation effort supported by the USAID Mekong Adaptation and Resilience to Climate Change (USAID Mekong ARCC) project and its partner, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Non Sao Ae and other forests provide nearby communities with many valuable products and services, and therefore require careful management in the face of anticipated climate change impacts.
Kok Klang village is home to 454 households (1,143 people), and is located in the Nam Phung river basin, which flows into a tributary of the Mekong River. Community members produce and sell primarily rubber, cassava, rice, livestock and non-timber forest products collected from the community forest areas and nearby Phu Pha Yon National Park. However, recent changes in local rainfall patterns and higher temperatures now increase risk of crop failures and impacts of animal production, and are altering ecosystems that threaten economically and culturally important plants and animals.
