Poisoned waters: Indigenous communities fight to protect Thailand’s Kok River

Hundreds of villagers, Indigenous leaders, monks and activists completed a six-day Peace Walk along northern Thailand's Kok River in July, demanding action on heavy metal contamination linked to mining upstream in Myanmar. The river, which flows from Myanmar's Shan State through Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai before joining the Mekong, supplies drinking water, irrigation and fisheries to communities now advised to be cautious eating fish from it.

Environmental groups tie the contamination, including elevated arsenic, to rare earth and mineral mining reportedly financed by Chinese investors, with pollution also reported in the Sai, Ruak, Salween and Mekong rivers. When protesters marched toward the Chinese Consulate-General in Chiang Mai to deliver a petition, police blockaded them and a confrontation left two demonstrators injured, one with a broken arm, one with a dislocated shoulder.

Civil society groups later gathered outside the Chinese Embassy in Bangkok demanding an independent investigation into the police response and identification of the businesses behind the pollution. Meanwhile, rights organizations report a rise in SLAPP lawsuits against Thai environmental defenders, including one activist who faced a 50-million-baht claim, adding legal risk to the physical one.

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