Dear Friends:

An Akha and I have just returned from a conference in Bangkok that was able to bring attention to the needs of the Akha in Thailand with both newspaper and TV coverage. I continue to look for opportunities to get the Akha story out.

Other Points of Interest:

1. We have gotten all of this year's donated vegetable and cotton seeds planted.

The Cotton seeds are for the Akha cloth project.

2. Thai Forestry Department in the Haen Taek Region of Ampur Mae Fah Luang continues to plant tree seedlings right in the existing rice and corn fields of the Akha people at their villages in that region. The corn and rice was already 6 or 7 inches tall and trampled while planting the seedlings.

If forestry had wanted to plant these fields they could have at least told the Akha not to plant this year, rather than waste their invested time.

However they did tell the Akha that if one of their tree sapplings got injured the Akha would have to pay 5000 baht, more than a $100 US.

Naturally this is a provocation on the part of Forestry, a strategy not foreign to these gestapo people from the stone age of civil society.

All from the land of smiles where the tourism business makes millions off Akha and other hilltribe tourism.

Matthew McDaniel
Maesai, Chiangrai