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Chiang Rai City Municipality
Chiang Rai City Municipality Muang District, Chiang Rai
Vision: Liveable city, capital of happiness Population: 76,887 (2018) Number of communities: 64 Area: 60.85 square kilometers
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Due to the affluence of its natural resources and strategic location with convenient access to a neighbor country, Chiang Rai serves as a door to trade, investment, and a part of a critical traveling route that connects to many other countries in the Indo-China region. A once slow-paced city is seeing a significant leap in urbanization. Maintaining a balance between its continually growing urban space and environmental preservation has become the province’s most significant challenge. Chiang Rai, therefore, strives to keep its charm as a lovely and liveable city it always has been.
Environmentally Sustainable City Management Model
Key of Success
Brainstorm, plan, and set in motion the strategy under the participation of every involved factor.
By taking the sustainable approach, the body of knowledge is transpired and exchanged; planning and operation should be done at an organizational level to enable continuous progress alongside educating the public.
Waste management collective
Chiang Rai municipality once had to deal with over 100-ton wastes daily, a considerable increase from 4 years ago when the number was only 80 tons a day, consequently leading to a higher budget spent on waste disposal. The municipality has pushed forward is the 3Rs principles to resolve the city’s waste management issue and its use of resources. Through community participation, the city works to form a body of knowledge and cultivate awareness among young people, strengthening the locals’ skills and knowledge related to waste sorting and finding a mutual agreement regarding waste collection times and dates.
Doi Saken: Urban Forest
Doi Saken is the only natural forestland situated in the city of Chiang Rai. The area has been the lung for 70,000 population of Chiang Rai with the biodiversity that includes countless species of indigenous plants and wild animals. In 2010, the municipality began a promotional project for urban biodiversity conservation. Joined by the local community and children, the project had started to explore Doi Saken’s biodiversity. The collected data is put together into a forest and biodiversity conservation database of this particular forest land. Other areas within the municipality have employed the conservational approach to their local ecosystems, such as public parks. In the meantime, local schools have included the topic as a part of the students’ learning experience.
Protecting the big trees, expanding green spaces
The urban landscape of Chiang Rai municipality stands out, not for its skyline of high rise buildings, but tens of massive rain trees that stand tall and providing shades to both sides of the roads. Some of the trees are over a century old and have been preserved as a part of the city’s urban fabric, making Chiang Rai greener and more livable. The initiative employs different types of participatory approaches and collaborations with many networks made up of organizations and agencies from governmental, private, and public sectors. It aims to preserve the city’s green spaces as a part of the strategy that hopes to turn Chiang Rai into the city of trees.
Learning Center for Environmental Management
Learning Center # 1 Cultural diversity
From past to present, Kok River, one of the sources of the area’s local art and cultures, has run through the city of Chiang Rai, generating urban civilization and developments that reflect the connection between people and the river. Local cultural identity serves as a tool to revive the river and its surrounding urban and natural environment.
Learning Center # 2 Urban Agricultural Area
Since 1995, the people of Baan Pa Ngew Community has transformed a deserted 3.55-acre plot of land into a community organic vegetable farm. Baan Pa Ngew Community has grown to become a model for safe and secure food production. Organic farming evolves into a part of people’s way of life. It grows seasonal plants and vegetables for consumers all-year-round. The farm also operates as a learning center of sufficiency agriculture with local farmers and the community being the instructors. It is also one of the city’s destinations for agricultural tourism and a stop on its cycling routes.
Learning Center # 3 Ecosystem of wetland
Nong Pueng Pond is a 35.5-acre natural wetland. It serves as the city’s massive water basin, which collects water for local usage during the drought season and restrains water from damaging the urban area during flood season. The local community works together with the municipal office in managing the area to stay beautiful and clean. Around the pond are large trees growing naturally. Miyawaki’s forest restoration method gives birth to new forestland, which has become a natural science class for students to explore and study. Everyone is welcome to be a part of forest conservation activities while the students are responsible for keeping track of the trees’ growth rates.
