Due to economic development, environmental problems in Thailand areat present very serious. To solve and prevent such problems it is vitallynecessary for not only the government but also the people and localorganizations to have more participation in solving them. Therefore, thethree objectives of this dissertation were 1) to study the role of theparties concerned in natural resources and environmental conservation, 2)to identify the factors affecting their role, and 3) to reveal someproblems and obstacles of natural resources and environmental conservation. The secondary data were collected from publications of manyorganizations relevant to natural resources and environmental conservationin different regions in Thailand. The primary data were gathered fromtambon administrative organizations (TAOs), community organizations (COs)and individuals in Chiang Mai and Lamphun provinces by using 3 separatequestionnaires. Each questionnaire consists of 5 parts: 1) generalcharacteristics of the units of analysis

2) supplementary factors of theunits of analysis

3) the role in natural resources and environmentalconservation

4) problems and obstacles of natural resources andenvironmental conservation

and 5) suggestion on natural resources andenvironmental conservation. These questionnaires had the reliabilitybetween .722 to .880 when Chronbach (+,a) was used to test theirreliability. They were distributed to 32 tambon administrative organizationchairmen, 128 community organization leaders and 349 individuals, or thetotal 509 samples. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics andmultivariate analyses, such as multiple regression, heirarchical regressionand analysis of variance. In this study, the five areas of natural resources and environmentalconservation examined were extension, development, maintenance, examinationand protection. The role in each area was measured by the number ofrelevant practices concerning soil, water, forest, solid wastes, noise and air. The principal role of TAOs and COs in natural resources andenvironmental conservation was measured from the frequency of disseminatingenvironmental information by means of the community news broadcastingtower, publications, community cleaning and tree-growing. For individuals,the principal role was measured by the frequency of joining the activities-held by TAOs, COs, non governmental organizations (NGOs) and otherorganizations, such as the Community Development Department and ForestryDepartment. Some of their important roles were cleaning the area aroundtheir houses, not throwing garbage in a water source, growing trees andusing renewable materials. The factors affecting the role of TAOs in natural resources andenvironmental conservation was access to environmental information,while those affecting the role of COs were types of the COs andexperience in environmental conservation. In the group ofindividuals, the factors were gender, access to environmentalinformation, experience in environmental conservation, andoccupation. That is, males participated more in natural resourcesand environmental conservation than females and those engaged inagriculture played a more important role in this matter than thosein other occupations. The main problems and obstacles of natural resources andenvironmental conservation of the three groups were lack of budgetand environmental conservation knowledge. The TAOs group usuallylacked participation froth people and even their own staff. In theCOs group, some which were newly established and had a few membershad no environmental conservation objectives. In the individualsgroup, people did not pay enough attention to conservation but totheir careers instead. Therefore, they did not have time forconservation participation. Moreover, they did not receive as muchenvironmental conservation information as TAOs and COs. Hardly didthey join any conservation activities. The comparison of the roles of TAOs, COs and individuals revealedthat TAOs had the greatest role and individuals the least. This wasbecause TAOs had direct responsibility for conservation of theenvironment in the community and they had arranging a budget forenvironmental activities. Moreover, their staff received moretraining and information about the environment from the governmentand NGOs than COs and individuals. In addition, the role of COs andindividuals in Lamphun province was found to be greater than inChiang Mai province, because in Lamphun there was much pollution inNorthern industrial estates. However, no difference was foundbetween TAOs in Chiang Mai and those in Lamphun because of thesimilarity in status, the number of staff and the amount of budget. It was recommended that, for conservation to be more effectiveto increase cooperation among all groups (the government, theprivate sector, community organizations and NGOs) be needed,environmental information be shared, and more money, staff andsupplies be given by the government and NGOs. The important factorswere awareness and understanding of all concerned that theenvironmental problem would increasingly affect everyone in thefuture if there was no environmental conservation now. Besides, theadministrators at the national, provincial and district levels hadto give more importance to natural resources and environmentalconservation by setting a clear and continuous policy on it.