Doi Tung – “From opium cultivation and deforestation to sustainable development”

2022, Thaïland

The Mae Fah Luang Foundation believes that "people" are both the root cause and the solution to social and environmental problems. It therefore starts with human development, because "no one wants to be bad, it's just that they don't have the opportunity to be good".

12. Responsible consumption and production

Coordinating this project is a huge source of motivation for me because it allows me to work on concrete solutions that will improve the daily lives of communities in the long term and help them reduce their energy footprint.

Guillaume Simonis John Cockerill Defense

The Mae Fah Luang Foundation (MFLF), under royal patronage, aims to develop communities, society, environment and cultures to create happiness, sustainability and stability.

Doi Tung is located in the heart of the Golden Triangle, which was once a major center for the production and trafficking of illicit drugs in the world.

The Doi Tung Development Project (DTDP) has transformed a community addicted to opium cultivation and trafficking into a proud and dignified community with an honest and stable income.

To achieve this, MFLF works in three phases. The first phase is “survival”, which is the development of the basic needs of life, providing public facilities and health care to enable communities to be free from hunger. This helps people reduce expenses, increase income and reduce household debt.

The second phase is “sufficiency”. It aims to restore the environment, improve the quality of life, add value to local products, and promote livelihoods that are adapted to the geo-social conditions and existing folk wisdom. This allows communities to build on this knowledge to create a stable and sustainable income.

And the third phase is “sustainability”. This phase focuses on training, learning and education of children and youth.

317m²

of photovoltaic panels

30%

of their annual consumption

44 T

of nuts harvested per year

42T

of CO² saved/year

On 09/08/2022, as part of the Doi Tung development project, we entered into a partnership with MFLF to shift the use of current energy sources towards a sustainable, clean energy system for the macadamia nuts and coffee production site and an administrative building.

In concrete terms, we assisted MFLF in choosing and defining the solution in the light of technical, financial and legislative constraints. The mission of the project is to create a new structure covering the motorcycle parking area, and the macadamia nuts shell storage area (the current roof could not support this additional load), in order to install photovoltaic panels. Solar panels will also be installed on the coffee production site and an administration building. Training in the operation and maintenance of the system is also part of the project.

Since the partnership was signed, we’ve been on site to meet our partners, see the production sites and check the feasibility of the project. This trip enabled us to get a feel for the site, and to see that the initial project had to be adapted (it was not possible to install the system on the roof of the macadamia nuts production site, so an additional structure had to be created). We also visited other sites that could be the subject of new projects.

To date, the local service provider has been selected, and engineering work is about to begin, with the project scheduled for completion in 2023.