When buffalo make plants visible: field notes from Lua herders in northern Thailand

In northern Thailand, Lua herders do not encounter biodiversity as a fixed inventory. They learn to notice it through the movements, appetites, and bodily conditions of Nam Wa buffalo moving between rice fields and forest grazing areas. Drawing on fieldwork in Ban Huai Phan, this article follows how browsed plants, hoofprints, bells, salt-seeking, wet mineral-rich sites, and remembered routes become sources of ecological and health knowledge. Buffalo make plants, places, and seasonal changes perceptible, whereas herders compare observations, test interpretations, and connect animal feeding with household medicine, ethnoveterinary care, and landscape history. This multispecies attention also complicates conservation and One Health approaches that frame livestock primarily in terms of risk, environmental pressure, or genetic resources. It shows how biodiversity is known through situated use, movement, uncertainty, and repeated care.

By Nicolas Lainé & Suthee Janyasuthiwong

References 

Nicolas Lainé, Suthee Janyasuthiwong, When buffalo make plants visible: field notes from Lua herders in northern Thailand, BioScience, 2026, biag124, https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biag124

l’IRD en parle dans le mag :

https://lemag.ird.fr/fr/des-buffles-et-des-eleveurs-lua-reinventent-le-one-health