This on ethnic matters writing presents a critical analysis of the politics of modern methods of forest conservation in Thailand and the reaction of the Karen towards the changes in the control of the environment. This work also focuses on two aspects. The first one is the history of the forests in Thailand and the roles of scientific forestry in making discourse and the practicing of the forest conservation. The second is the study of Karen ecological knowledge and their reactions towards the mainstream of the conservation paradigm. The study points out that the discourses on “the hill tribes”, “nature” and “conservation” are not only the construct, but they are constantly under modification. The main question is “How has the mainstream of conservation ideology been planted and how has it been challenged?” According to the analysis on the historical development of the forests in Thailand, this study also points out that the idea of forest conservation in Thailand is the output of the social and political changes which changed the concept of the forests to being a major factor in the nation state of Thailand’ civilization projects. Meanwhile, the major factors of the development of the forest conservation ideology in Thailand’s urban society are a legacy of the Western colonial ideology of forest management for commerce, the desire of the nation state of Thailand for civilization projects and the use of resources for development. Furthermore, the building up of the conservation trend is the principal form of the government’s strategy which consists of setting up an institution for control and the management, setting up an institution for giving knowledge and the setting up the state policy. However, the nation state of Thailand is not an institution of unity. Its domestic politics bring about the prime conditions for differences in attitudes and the resources management of the state agencies. This book also consides the foresters and the conservationists’ concepts. It proposes that the effectiveness of the forest conservation ideology does not depend on only the authorities in scientific forestry changing attitudes towards the landscape and the association between the landscape and the communities, but it also depends on the ability to integrate these concepts with the existing class inequality and racial inequality In this aspect, class discrimination and racial discrimination is major factor in structure of conservation ideology in Thai society. The second part of the book studies Karen knowledge and the question about the process of building up and centralising the state’s modern conservation paradigm in order to co-ordinate with the politics of modern conservation. In addition, Karen Ecological Knowledge is able dynamically react to the concepts of nature which are created by many parties in society, especially by the government. The local challenge to the mainstream of forestry ideology is developed via the learning process and the adaptation to modern alien knowledge such as maps and the invention of the tradition for local natural resources management. For this reason, to gain and to use the discourses on the community forests and the swidden cultivation which exist in the community maps, it is able to open and build up the communication tools for the villagers in order to interact with the authorities and the non-government development organizations. The countervailing discourse is used by the Karen as a strategic tool in order to protect their resources and to re-position their space and their marginal identity in Thai society. Thus, the accumulation up of local knowledge takes place in the process of interaction between the mainstream concepts and mainstream practice and the communities’ concepts and the communities’ practice. It is also the Karen fight for acceptance in Thai society.