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Throughout history the role of Malay traders in the Malay-Indonesian archipelago was very imminent. Their presence was very important in the Malay waters and it was they who were the collector and distributor of goods and commodities that arrived at many major port-towns in the archipelago. Although their presence in the intra-Asian trade is very clearly documented in the VOC (Dutch) and English records, research and writing on their role in trade has been neglected by scholars. The importance of Malay traders were seldom highlighted and if they were mentioned their role were not written in greater detail. As trade and commerce expanded in Southeast Asia, the nineteenth century saw the decline of Malay traders when fewer of them appeared to have the means and resources to participate in long distance trade. It is the aim of this paper to highlight the role of the Malay traders which was an important group of traders that had been plying in the Malay waters. Who were these traders and where they came from and the commodities they carried and the various types of ships they travelled will be discussed in the paper. The study will also look at the arrival of these traders at the two main ports in the Straits of Melaka, namely Melaka and Penang as their main destination. The study will also look at the connection between these major two ports in the Straits of Melaka with other native ports in the east coast of Sumatra and on the west coast of the Malay peninsula.

The talk concerns a protest against a wildlife sanctuary in northern Thailand's Phayao Province during 1999. Mien ethnic minority farmers, agitated because they were not able to have a good road connection or enjoy other basic benefits of modernization, proceeded to burn down official buildings at the sanctuary after having driven off the staff. Their reason, stated in official letters and elsewhere, was 18 years of suffering from the sanctuary's director. Many meetings were held to try to find a solution that worked for both parties, the farmers and the authorities, but so far nothing has come of the protest. The protest, the meetings, and the NGO-documentation of both are suggestive about the contemporary politics of nature, identity, and democracy, and the character of state control. The issue of preserving nature hints at current changes in Thai society; a redefinition of the sphere of economics as much as the relations of economics to politics and the environment, that indicate the growing prominence of middle class values in the national public sphere.