This work investigated the potential and natural resource management, e.g., forest, water sources, land and the residential area, of the Hmong community at Pa Kia Nai village # 8 in Tambon Bo Kaew, Smoeng district, Chiang Mai province. Originally, the community was involved in subsistence agriculture for domestic consumption. When the policy to ban opium cultivation was enforced in 1985, the community turned to commercial crops to replace opium cultivation. The change to cash crops as well as socio-economic and environmental changes enabled the community to have more income, but their debts also increased. Other problems were resource contestation from outsiders and the declaration of national park areas that overlapped with the farmland of the community. These obstacles obliged the community to cooperate with others in allocating, exploiting and conserving forest and water resources in order to ensure that community resources remained abundant and sufficient for collective exploitation of community members.