Appropriate community participation process on Kon watershed management, Nan province

Research objective is to design an appropriated community participation process on watershed management for reduce conflicts in natural resources utilization of local community at Kon watershed, Nan province. Participatory Action Research (PAR) was applied in this form the Core Planning Team (CPT) and to arrange participatory workshop with stakeholders. The results show that the major problems at Kon watershed are unsuitable land use, forest degradation, soil erosion, and conflict on watershed resources utilization. The result of participatory workshop devided land use zoning into two zones, the preservation and protection zone approximately 72.89 percent, and the utilization zone approximately 27.11 percent of total watershed area. The stakeholders also determined management guidelines, i.e. forest rehabilitation, buffer zone management, forest fire surveillance, reservoir rehabilitation, and suitable agricultural extension. An appropriated participatory process should consider the roles of stakeholders, decision making on GIS based, and operation process which suitable to the local socio-economic.