The success of the Huay Hong Krai Rural Development Study in Chiang Mai, provided
striking confirmation of His Majesty’s theory. Even earth that is practically lifeless can be
reinvigorated if one understands and knows how to apply the laws of inter-relatedness in
nature to help it recover its balance. But for His Majesty the King, the restoration of the
balance of nature is not an end in itself. It is a means to guarantee a vigorous, life-sustaining
system for the rural poor.

In a marriage of nature and human effort, His Majesty has invented a method to speed up
reforestation by building hundreds of small, simple check-dams, using bricks and earth,
in the mountain streams. The aim is to spread the moisture to a wider area and retain it to nurture
the trees for as long as possible, before the water flows into the reservoir below. By keeping
the forest soil damp, fires are prevented, thus allowing the forest to regenerate more quickly.

His Majesty’s has described Huay Hong Krai as the conclusion of his own rural development
work after several decades of searching for a low-cost, simple, and effective cure for rural
poverty. His conclusion was ; there exists no uniform, single formula for a solution to the
problem, given the vast diversity of geography that dictates the conditions of land, water supply,
and climate, as well as the people’s way of life, which varies from region to region.

The 8,500-rai Huay Hong Krai site is among six development study centres His Majesty has
set up in different regions to cope with the vast diversity in land conditions. He calls them
“Living Museums.”

The first of these was Khao Hin Son, east of Bangkok. It is His Majesty’s model of how to
convert near useless soil into usable farmland. In Chiang Mai the Huay Hong Krai Centre is
intended to be a catchment area conservation model for the north, and The Pikul Thong Centre
in Narathiwat is a study centre for swampy acidic land for the South. The Phu Phan Centre in
Sakon Nakhon studies salination and irrigation for the Northeast. The Kung Kraben Bay Centre
in Chanthaburi studies rehabilitation of mangroves and coastal waters, and the Huay Sai Centre
in Phetchaburi studies the rehabilitation of degraded forests.