 of Peninsular Malaysia (Scott, 1985) is, therefore, only to be expected.
This chapter will henceforth concentrate on the problems experienced by tribal minorities, but within the wider context presented above. Apart from being among the impoverished, the tribal minorities themselves are being increasingly marginalized. The nature of developmental and environmental problems encountered by these socio-economic groups by no means represents the vast range of socio-economic difficulties faced by the various threatened societies in South-East Asia, each of which can have a very different story. But it does offer a broad picture of the dimension of the concerns l:aced, the main driving forces, and the contending issues which need to be addressed in order to provide a more sustainable environmental future for the threatened peoples.
Tribal peoples of south-east Asia: Causes and nature of threat
From one perspective, the diverse ethnic composition of South-East Asia is among its most enchanting socio-cultural characteristics. Almost every one of the countries of the region contains as many as two to three dozen ethnic communities, each possessing and practicing a culture which is only superficially similar to that of the others. This situation is partly explained by the pattern of migration of the various ethnic groups into the region from the southern parts of China, as well as by political developments in the past (LeBar, 1972; Rambo, 1982). But most of these groups constitute small minorities. One or two racial or ethnic groups form between one-half and as much as three-quarters of the total population of each South-East Asian country; the rest comprise small tribal communities with populations frequently totalling only a few thousand. Minority status makes them relatively vulnerable to socio-economic and environmental changes led by, and largely for, the majority groups.
Since the 1980s, considerable interest has been focused on some of these small minority groups in South-East Asia, partly as a result of the fear-some of it based on fact and some based on assumptions-that disintegration if not the extinction of these groups or their cultures will be the culmination of their greater interaction with the outside world. This concern is particularly expressed for those tribal communities who continue to rely principally on the natural environment for a major portion of their subsistence. There are indications that tribal community interactions with outsiders have principally benefited the latter. It is claimed that these groups are increasingly being marginalized socio-politically, economically and environmentally.
Apart from the fact that this concern with the survival of ethnic minorities is now globalized, there is nothing particularly new about development leading to the erosion and disintegration of tribal cultures, and the degradation of their living environment' following intensification of their interaction with the outside world. There is abundant historical evidence (Pringle, 1970; Wang, 1958) and anthropological and archaeological testimony (Colless, 1969; Dunn, 1975; Hutterer, 1974, 1983b; Rambo, 1969, 1988; Wales, 1940) as well as information from geographical sources (Lien, 1988; Potter, 1988) on environmental abuse and economic exploitation of tribal people living in this region. As Dentan (1965) noted in his study of the Orang Asli in Peninsular Malaysia, social, economic and physical exploitation is not recent.
Up until the early 1900s, the Orang Asli within the states of Perak and Pahang, for example, were known to have suffered adversely at the hands of the Malays.
Today, as in the past, the frontier regions are still the warehouses of resources demanded by the outside groups and the world at large. For centuries, South-East Asia was the scene of violence and exploitation, arising in the early periods from competitive demands for spices and valuable forest products such as sandalwood, and subsequently from forced cultivation of cash crops like coffee, coconut, rubber and sugar-cane by various colonial powers