The 1988 Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding

For centuries Southeast Asia's diverse and independent hill peoples lived well by "eating the forest," following the ancient agricultural cycle of slashing, burning, and cultivating, and then moving on. As rising pressure for land in modern times destroyed the natural equilibrium of shifting cultivation, the forest began to die. This brought drought and floods to the plains and poverty to the hills. Hard pressed, the hill people in northern Thailand and neighboring Burma and Laos turned to the poppy. By the late 1960s northern Thailand alone was producing 150 tons of opium a year.

In 1969 His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand hearkened to the crisis. He set in motion a program to replace opium poppies with temperate climate cash crops and to arrest the destruction of precious forests and watersheds. This became the ROYAL PROJECT.

His Majesty appointed Prince Bhisatej Rajani to supervise the PROJECT. For research and essential administrative services, he called upon Kasetsart University, which soon set up the PROJECT's pioneering experiment station at Ang Khang, in the highlands of Chiangmai Province.

Today, in several mountain stations, researchers test hundreds of temperate climate fruit trees and vegetables for their potential as cash crops. Volunteers from universities and government agencies introduce the successful ones to villagers in demonstration centers throughout the highlands.

Nearly three hundred upland villages beneflt directly from the ROYAL PROJECT, which is also introducing schools, cooperatives, rice banks, and primary medical services.

In the ROYAL PROJECT's orchards and gardens, apricot trees donated by Japan grow alongside peaches and plums from North America, pears and persimmons from Taiwan, apples from Israel, and kiwis from New Zealand. Technicians from Taiwan have, for fifteen years, volunteered their practical skills. For example, fruit tree expert Soong Ching-yun is so well known in Ang Khang that villagers call him "Papa Soong." The United States government and agencies of the United Nations have provided critical funding and assistance. In ways large and small, so have dozens of other countries and international organizations.

The ROYAL PROJECT buys produce from hill farmers, then grades, packages, and markets it. Once imported luxuries, many temperate climate fruits and vegetables are now readily available to Thai consumers. The PROJECT also processes jams, canned vegetables, dried fruits, and flowers for export.

These days when His Majesty the King makes his yearly visit to PROJECT sites, he sees a transformation. One-time poppy farmers are turning to more profitable crops. They are becoming vegetable, fruit, and coffee growers. Opium cultivation has declined by 85 percent.

In electing the ROYAL PROJECT to receive the 1988 Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, the Board of Trustees recognizes its concerted national and international effort to curtail opium growing by bringing worthy livelihoods to Thailand's hill tribes.