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Walailak University formally opened the Maniq Living Heritage Forum 2026 today, launching two days of academic panels, community storytelling and cultural exchange under the theme "Voices from the Forest to Society: Collaborative Learning for the Future of the Maniq People."

The opening ceremony was held at the university's Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Natural History Museum, drawing Maniq community members, researchers, students, government officials, and members of the public, with an expected 200 to 300 attendees over the two-day event.

Presiding over the ceremony, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Charun Bunyakan, Walailak University's Vice President for Academic Affairs in Humanities and Social Sciences, described the Maniq as one of the original Indigenous peoples of the Malay Peninsula, whose knowledge of the forest and relationship with nature has been passed down over thousands of years — evidence, he said, that the tropical forests of southern Thailand are not empty land but a living cultural landscape. He noted that rapid economic and social change is putting new pressure on the Maniq way of life and identity, and said the university considers it a responsibility to help conserve and share that knowledge accurately and with respect for human dignity.



Dr. Charun highlighted the project's support from the Plant Genetic Conservation Project under the Royal Initiative of Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, alongside combined efforts from Walailak's School of Political Science and Public Administration, School of Law, the Center of Geosocial and Cultural Research for Sustainable Development (GSCR), the Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre, and Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society.

Asst. Prof. Dr. Pairote Nualnoom, Deputy Director of Walailak Botanic Park, welcomed attendees to the venue. The Botanic Park, he said, has backed the Maniq research project both by helping secure funding for in-depth study of the community and by sharing that knowledge through outdoor exhibitions and years of related research. He described the forum as more than an academic exchange of findings — "a space for meeting, learning and listening to one another" — particularly by giving Maniq community members a role as storytellers of their own experience, wisdom and perspective, alongside academics, students, government agencies and civil society groups.



Assistant Professor Dr. Siriporn Somboonboorana — Head of the research project and of GSCR — framed its purpose around a single question.

"The study of ethnicity should not stop at the question of who they are," she told the audience, "but must move to a more important one: who has the right to tell their story, and is society truly listening to their voice?"

She described the forum as the result of a cross-disciplinary, cross-border bringing together ethnic studies, anthropology, law, human rights, environmental studies, politics and museum management alongside community knowledge and experience. Scholars and practitioners from Thailand, India, Indonesia and Malaysia joined the exchange, she said, situating the Maniq's situation within a broader question facing societies across the region: how to pursue development without leaving anyone behind, preserve diversity without turning culture into a museum object, and give the owners of a culture the right to help determine its own future.



The Maniq are considered among the oldest Indigenous peoples of the Malay Peninsula, part of a broader network of Indigenous forest communities spanning peninsular Thailand and Malaysia, with historical and genetic ties to other Indigenous groups across Island Southeast Asia — including in the Andaman Islands, the Philippines and eastern Indonesia.

In Thailand, Maniq communities live mainly in the forested mountain ranges of the southern peninsula, across Yala, Satun, Trang, Phatthalung and Nakhon Si Thammarat provinces. Related communities in Malaysia are recognized as part of the Orang Asli, particularly among Northern Aslian-speaking groups. The community has been referred to by various names over time, including Mani, Menriq and Meniq; the term "Sakai," found in older colonial-era records, is now widely regarded by community members as outdated and pejorative, and most communities prefer their own names.

For thousands of years, the Maniq have maintained deep knowledge of forest ecosystems — wildlife, medicinal plants, seasonal cycles — which demonstrates that tropical forests are not empty wilderness but living cultural landscapes shaped by generations of Indigenous stewardship. That way of life now faces mounting pressure from economic and social change, shifting government policy, and challenges to passing knowledge between generations.



The forum grows out of a multiyear research project, "Co-Creation Towards a Living Museum: Integrating Knowledge and Participatory Learning," which Dr. Siriporn said marks a break from how the Maniq have typically been studied.

"In the past, much of the research followed a familiar pattern," she said. "Researchers went into the community, collected information, took photographs, recorded stories, and then interpreted what they found. The final story was usually told through the researcher's voice." The project instead asks how Maniq community members can take part in telling their own stories, shaping not just the material researchers gather but the exhibits, activities and narrative structure of the forum's "Living Museum."

One idea from her years of fieldwork has stayed with her, she said: for the Maniq, "the forest is not separate from life." It is a source of food and medicine, a classroom where children learn from their parents, and a landscape layered with memory. "When a forest disappears," she said, "the loss is not only environmental. We may also lose knowledge, language, memory, and ways of understanding the world."



The ceremony was followed by an exhibition opening and a screening of the documentary "Maniq Chronicles: The Jungle's Legacy," and Maniq community representatives, followed by the presentation of "Leave Your Voice" awards, a photography and storytelling competition held alongside the exhibition.

Day two will open with a keynote delivered by Dr. Piyarat Parinyapong Charoensap on Ethnobotany in the Context of the Plant Genetic Conservation Project under the Royal Initiative of Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, followed by three academic panels: one on the politics of Indigenous knowledge in Asia, with scholars from Thailand and India; one on state power, law and the refusal of Indigenous peoples, with speakers from Thailand, Indonesia and Russia; and one on Indigenous knowledge, forests and environmental justice, with scholars from Malaysia, Thailand, India and China. The day will culminate in a roundtable bringing together a senator, a subdistrict mayor, independent researchers and the Chairman of the Civil People’s Committee for the Care of the Mani People, followed by a closing plenary and Walailak Declaration on Indigenous Knowledge and Living Museum.

"I would like to see the Living Museum grow into a learning center for Indigenous knowledge, not only for Southern Thailand but also as a place that connects people working on Indigenous issues across Southeast Asia," Dr. Siriporn said. But its success, she said, will ultimately be measured by something simpler: whether the Maniq continue to have a voice in how their own stories are told.

"A Living Museum should not freeze a community in the past," she said. "It should change and grow with the people whose stories it shares."









News by Settaboot Onphakdee, Division of Corporate Communications