["Asia Pacific Viewpoint, EarlyView. ", "\nABSTRACT\nSince the mid‐2010s, Thai public discourse has villainised upland maize cultivation in northern Thailand for deforestation and environmental degradation through the popular imagery of bald mountains. The attention has prompted a new wave of land‐use interventions urging upland smallholders to replace maize with trees and perennials. In this paper, we use discourse analysis to analyse the problem and solution narratives around upland maize and proposed land‐use interventions, based on interviews with intervention actors and upland smallholders. Our analysis shows that the targeting of upland maize is the latest manifestation of historically entrenched degradation narratives around upland agriculture and forests that selectively blame upland smallholders. We illustrate how this discourse continues to dominate upland resource management through a discourse coalition around bald mountains that reinforces the same problem narratives and diverts attention from the resource politics around upland maize and environmental degradation. This has led to misguided localised interventions that adversely affect upland communities. We point to the need to examine the power dynamics that produce such restrictive notions of environmental ‘villains’ that lead to marginalisation, and to broaden the discursive framings around environmental degradation in other similar contexts.\n"]