Community forestry in Vietnam

In reality, community participation in forest management is attracting much attention at the local, national, and international levels (Agarwal 2001; Pagdee et al. 2006; Charnley and Poe 2007). The term “Participatory Management” has become an indispensable word in development programs and projects in which emphasizing mostly to people’s participation (Agarwal 2001). By looking at definitions of participation as defined by Narayan 1995; and Conge 1998; participation can be understood as a move to the higher levels that manifest the people’s ability and activeness in the decision making process; equity enhancement.

The importance of this engagement is undeniable and has been repeatedly demonstrated by researchers (Agrawal and Gibson 1999; Kellert et al. 2000; Pagdee et al. 2006).

In Vietnam, forestry practices of utilization and protection are closely tied to the local traditions of highland communities, most of which are ethnic minorities. Community forests have historically been closely connected to the lives and beliefs of the resident communities, as they rely on the forests and forest resources for survival. Confronted with

harvesting and slash and burn agriculture (Castella et al. 2005; Meyfroidt and Lambin 2008a, 2008b, 2009), the Vietnamese government has acknowledged community forest management as an effective practice garnering state concern and encouragement. As a result, they have implemented a policy of forest land allocation (FLA) in which communities in the northern, central, and highland regions of the country have been made responsible for the sustainable management and long-term use of their local forests (LAs-02, 09, 30, 35, etc.). FLA is considered essential in order for local communities to sustainably manage, profit from, and participate in forest policies and practices.

Along with the FLA policy, the Vietnamese government has been building the legal basis for community forestry management by renovating the policies of land profit and ownership up to now. With perception that FLA is an important, prerequisite and essential for local community to manage forest sustainably, profit from forest directly, and participate in decision making process actively; at the end of 2011, there are about 2,792,946.3 ha of total forest area that were allocated to and managed by organizations, households or individuals (Ngai 2009). Of this land: 1,916,169.2 ha is forested land; 867,777.1 ha is bare land and hills. The forested land areas managed by communities make up 15% of the total forest area of Vietnam (12,873,815 ha), most of which is natural forest comprising protection forest and special use forest that makes up 96% (Anonymous-12 2008; Phuong 2008). The popular types of community forest management are as follows:

- Type 1: Forests and forest lands used for forestry purpose are allocated to community to manage with the goal of long-term, sustainable use.

- Type 2: Forests and forest lands are recognized and managed by community for period of time, but are not officially allocated by the state (without any legal document:

unallocated). These are often sacred forests, or forests otherwise providing traditional forest products for the local community.

- Type 3: Forests and forest lands owned by state organizations (e.g. forest enterprises or management boards of protection and special use forests) and used for forestry purposes are given to communities to protect, sustain, and regenerate based on a fifty-year perennial forest contract.

Whatever the source, community forests come under the management of one of three subjects: the local community, a family or a group of households/interest group. Each community forest management type has its own characteristics that correspond to and depend on the specific conditions (e.g., natural, cultural) of each region. These can be subdivided as follows:

- Community forests under the management of local communities or families are generally situated in remote areas, characterized by large populations of ethnic minorities and underdeveloped markets/production levels. Community forest management practices in these areas must therefore meet the subsistence demands of the local inhabitants. Forest products are mainly used for housing, fuel, and NTFPs for household and community demands. Based on these characteristics, the forests are managed in a traditional fashion based on local regulations by the community.

- The community forests under the management of an interest group or group of households are normally located in regions with developing markets and production. In such cases, the community forest management is organized in the various ways and higher level such as establishment of community forest economic organizations; co-operatives of community.

Community forest management in Vietnam is thus defined as “the management patterns through which the local people manage natural resources within their boundaries where the forests have been controlled according to custom for long-time and/or legal rights by community” (Wode and Huy 2009).

In addition to the legal framework for community forest implementation, sets of the technical instructions guiding community forest management have been designed;

however, the local people are generally unfamiliar with legal documents, and as a resultthe contents of those documents are inadequately understood and applied within the community. Research on the subject has demonstrated that most community forest management models are self-forming and self-regulating inconsistent and mainly based on local experience and competencies (Nguyen 2008; Ngai 2009). These current patterns of community forest management consist of two significant aspects: the establishment of a locally organizational system within a community and the creation of local regulation as the

benefit are self-regulated and self-implemented among the community members based on the interests of both the community and the individuals involved.

Realities of the patterns of community forest management indicated that local communities manage community forest in three management instruments as following: (1) by establishing management organization and operation based on the principle of the people’s trust and choice with respect to the village patriarch or chief of hamlet; (2) by drawing up forest regulation that relies on local regulation; (3) by designing a mechanism of benefit sharing based on the community’s agreement and the state policy.

Community participating in forest management is a reality, despite it is institutionalized or unrecognized; hence, community participation and the acknowledgement of their status as a legal entity is always profitable to forest management. Kellert et al. (2000) have argued that only the effective involvement of the people can contribute to forest conservation and produce expected outcomes for local community and forest practices. This is likewise noted in much of the existing body of literature, e.g., Oakley (1991), Singh and Khare (1993), Buchy and Hoverman (2000), and Stem et al. (2003). Like many other countries, Vietnam has implemented community forestry in the forested regions throughout the country; today, the program is often promoted as a means of tackling forest degradation and alleviating pervasive poverty among the ethnic minorities living in the highlands.

Strongly stressed by scholars, to realize and foster the potentials on overcoming the dual forest-related problem, the genuine devolution politically from state government to local authorities even at community levels is required in the program (Fisher 1999; Lachapelle et al. 2004; Nygren 2005). In this process commonly local forest users are involved in the decision making process and execution of forest practices. As indicated by Larson 2005-p.33 “decentralization is a process of the transfer of powers from central government to lower levels in a political-administrative and territorial hierarchy”. This process consists of two models which can be seen from its definition, they are administrative decentralization and political decentralization. Case studies (Dachang and Edmunds 2004; Edmunds and Wollenberg 2004; Larson 2005) have indicated limitation of devolution that it is rarely followed by genuine power devolution to local forest users. Regarding to the forest sector, Wollenberg et al. (2008) pointed out whether the decentralization is executed in other

forestry programs. One hand, it (decentralization model) meets ecological goals (biodiversity, forest coverage, timber) and some economic benefit, but narrowly restricts available options of forest user. On the other hand, it can contribute to local development via increasing funding from forestry practices, but not public goals. This allows to conclude that none type is yet to fully met the expectations of community forestry programs (Wollenberg et al. 2008).

Abundance of studies on community forestry has sought to reasons/causes for community forestry process and/or analyzed this process over the related aspects. Many of them however concentrate on answering questions of attributes of local forest users, such as what is the role of local forest user (Singh and Khare 1993; Gibson et al. 2000); obstacles to the effectiveness of community forestry (Lachapelle, Smith et al. 2004); linkage between forest users and the forests (Pokharel and Nurse 2004; Nguyen 2006; Meyfroidt and Lambin 2008a); institutions for community forestry (Thomson 1992; Ostrom 1998).

Although these studies provide crucial insights and explain the reasons that promote community forest management; the causes of failure or success of forest management programs, they do not answer whether political framework drive the outcomes and activities of community forestry. In reality, community forestry practice is yet to meet its perspective outcomes under the influence of political processes and interactions among actors related to community forestry.