POL 537-11A

ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS AND PUBLIC POLICY

Research paper

Community-based natural resource management:

Case of Thai ethnic group in Hanh Dich commune, Que Phong

district, Nghe An province, Vietnam

Submitted by: Pham Van Dung

ID: 1165976

Submit date: June 24th, 2011

Introduction

This research paper will discuss the role of the community in natural resource

management, particularly land and forest management and protection in Vietnam. The

paper offers a discussion of environmental discourses that are related to the impacts of

state land and forest management policies. Though ethnic communities in Vietnam have

developed their knowledge and institutional systems in community natural resource

management for a long time, communities were not recognized formally as one of the

land users until 2003. Even then, though communities were identified as land users, few

communities could attain land title. Those policies have had consequences with

communities and their members facing shortages of land and forest. Nevertheless, those

resources are essential for sustaining local people’s livelihoods, protecting forest, and

keeping their cultural values.

The paper is organized in three main parts. The first summaries some key environmental

discourses, especially ‘sustainable development’, and introduces concepts of culture,

customary laws and community-based natural resource management. The second part

deals with resource management and related legal framework in Vietnam. The third part

illustrates the role of community in land and forest use and protection through a

discussion of a Thai ethnic community in Vietnam1.

1 As a senior staff and a researcher of SPERI, I have involved in studying and supporting the Thai community, which is illustrated in the case study of this research paper. Information in the case study is either derived from SPERI profiles or my own observation and experiences.

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Part 1: Literature review

1.1. Sustainable development and other environmental discourses

Various environmental ideas, debates and discourses have emerged during previous

decades. ‘Prometheans’ consider nature as resources, just for exploitation, so they cannot

soundly respond to the environmental constraints (Dryzek, 2005, pp. 51-52).

‘Administrative rationalists’ could not deal with environmental problems well because of

their emphasis on expertise and failure of inclusion (ibid, pp. 93-95). Nowadays

‘sustainable development’ becomes a dominant discourse in the environmental debate

(Carruthers, 2001, p. 285). According to Wright and Kurian (2010, p. 402), this discourse

assumes that “economic and environmental benefits can be simultaneously generated”. It

encourages wise resources use, and urges environmental protection, equity, and

cooperation, so as to ensure sustainable development to meet the needs of present and

future generations (ibid, p. 402).

To achieve sustainable development, community and collective action are important

environmental factors, but misunderstanding of common property may undermine efforts

to strengthen community-based resource management. Agrawal (1999) argues that Garrett

Hardin and his followers’ judgement on resource degradation “served to (mis)guide

policy” (p. 631). In fact social bonds and community institutions are significant factors for

minimizing individualism and its consequences of the overuse and exhaustion of

resources. Therefore, it is better to understand the contemporary community and its role in

managing common property than to base policy on Hardin’s (1968) notion of “the tragedy

of the commons”.

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1.2. Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM)

CBNRM is “a way of increasing community participation in natural resource management

at the local level” (Vandergeest, 2006, p. 344). Land rights, land and forest tenure are

essential factors in CBNRM. The weakening of communal land rights and emergence of

fragile individual land rights dilute traditional resource management (Colchester, 1995,

pp. 73-74). Lynch and Alcorn (1994) argue that local people may practically decide on

resources even if the state ownership is claimed (p. 377), although government claims

may damage the incentive to practise sustainable community resource management (p.

379). Therefore, it is necessary to secure community property rights (p. 380). Colchester

(1995, p. 80) emphasizes that effects of community-based management are positive for

biodiversity. Many scholars support customary land rights and land reform to serve

sustainable forest management (Lynch and Alcorn, 1994, p. 384; Colchester, 1995, pp.

65-70; Plant, 1995, p. 35; Vandergeest, 2006, p. 323). That is reasonable, because land

and forest rights offer good incentives to a community to preserve their resources and

ensure their livelihoods in a sustainable way.

1.3. Cultural values, customary law in resource management and protection

Culture, customary law and their relation have been defined and explained by many

scholars. Over a long period of time indigenous people have developed and attained

profound awareness of the ecology and human-nature relationship (Lynch and Alcorn,

1994, p. 382), and culture become ‘ecologically attuned’ (Flannery, 1994, p.389). Local

land owners “had the political, spiritual and moral authority to engage with the

environment” (Ross et al, 2011, p. 59). Cultural perception of ownership embeds rights,

responsibilities, and legal concepts (Franz and Benda-Beckmann, 1999, p. 30). That is a

foundation for not only internal, but also external interactions and norms. Merry (1998, p.

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880) and Franz and Benda-Beckmann (1999, p. 30) affirm the existence of legal

pluralism, of which customary law is fundamental. Merry defines “customary law as a

cultural construct with political implications, a set of ideas embedded in relationships that

are historically shifting” (p. 880). People set up communal norms and institutions for

collective decision and resource management (Agrawal, 1999, p. 635; Taylor, 1998, p.

252; Vandergeest, 2006, p. 325).

Promotion of local knowledge, traditional institutions, and customary law contribute

fundamentally to resource management and protection. In order to deal well with

decision-makers and outsiders, it is essential to strengthen community leadership and

allow people’s voice to be heard (Tyler and Mallee, 2006, p. 368). Tree ordination in

Northern Thailand is a good example of the promotion of local cultural values, religious

practice, and customary rights for the sake of forest protection (Darlington, 2003, p. 347;

Ross et al, 2011, p. 228). Many governments have recognized and translated the notion of

community-based forest into law (Sikor, 2006, p. 339) thanks to successes and effects of

traditional institutions.

1.4. Interaction between statutory law and customary law in resource management

There exist the gap and overlapping between statutory and customary systems because the

formal system tends to homogenize the legal framework for resource management

(Peluso, 1995, p. 208). While scientific elites and modern sciences became a hegemonic

belief system (Ross et al, 2011, p. 66), “[i]ndigenous land was transformed into

government and settler title” (ibid, p. 71). The management arena thus fails to include

indigenous voices (ibid, p. 72). Formal legislation and paternalistic attitudes often

overlook the diversity of local institutions, knowledge and ownership (Tyler and Mallee,

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2006, p. 355; Tyler, 2006, p. 383). The alienation of the community from their inherent

resources for the sake of economic business results in a loss of interest and concern for

community, resource management constraints, and even political conflicts (Colchester,

1995, pp. 75-78; Ross et al, 2011, p. 182). Arguments about community rights

(Vandergeest, 2006, p. 322; Tyler, 2006, p. 24) should be raised to respond to the

adaptable knowledge, values, and strength of community, so as to ensure local people’s

sustainable livelihoods. Community rights and customary tenure systems should be

recognized (Wright, 1994, p. 527) and encouraged for the improvement of sustainable

resource management.

Though CBNRM has revealed successes and been recognized, interaction and challenges

to CBNRM remain critical. To clarify the role of CBNRM in a more specific dimension,

the following part will analyse forest management and related legal frameworks in

Vietnam.

Part 2: Forest management and related legal framework in Vietnam

2.1. Historical review of land and forest management in Vietnam

2.1.1. Pre-colonial and colonial periods (before 1945)

According to Poffenberger (1990, p. 8), people had probably located and had been

practicing swidden cultivation, hunting and gathering in Southeast Asia since the first

millennium A.D. Early Vietnamese kingdoms establish administrative systems since the

first centuries A.D. Though indigenous communities have founded their own concepts of

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land tenure, national laws do not favourably recognize their tenure (ibid, p. 9). However

feudal state and outside force had not pushed strong impacts on traditional community

forest management until the emergence of colonial rule in the mid-nineteenth century.

Since then state management and extraction of forests have been accelerating hastily

(ibid, p. 19).

2.1.2. Independent and collective time

Though the government successfully claimed large forest areas under national ownership,

displacing local communities, they could not introduce sustainable alternatives for using

the forest (Poffenberger, 1990, p. 8). With the rhetoric of “land reform” and radical

measures, the government launched collectivization programmes during the 1960s after

the expropriation of lands from owners of large land (Plant, 1995, p. 37). Almost all land,

forest and other production tools were transferred to state and cooperative control.

Centralization, bureaucracy and coercion resulted in the failure of the state programmes

(p. 38). Forest cover in Vietnam dropped from 43% in 1943 to 29% in 1975 because “400

state forest companies and 150 state wood processing enterprises” were the main actors of

forest exploitation (Eccleston and Potter, 1996, p. 51).

2.1.3. Renovation (Doi moi) and post-cooperative (since 1986)

Though decollectivization was launched in mid-1980s, state control of resources remains

heavily persistent. Traditional land use for subsistence (An, 2006, p. 85), such as swidden,

rotational shifting cultivation, herbal areas were claimed as “barren” land and converted

to state control. As a result, many poor households lost rights to access (Rambo and

Jamieson, 2003, p. 161). Individual land leases were accepted, and individual land user

rights were introduced after the decollectivization. But the impacts from top-down control

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and free market weakened institutions of community forest management and also

accelerated shortage of community land and forest tenure. These are the acute remaining

issues in “the development of community-based forest management in Vietnam”

(Sunderlin, 2006, pp. 392-293). Many projects relying on foreign expertise,

misunderstood shifting cultivation as a cause of deforestation, and did not take

commercial logging or large-scale projects into account. Local initiatives were ignored,

and that undermined success of the development plan (Bryant and Parnwell, 1996, p. 17;

Rambo and Jamieson, 2003, p. 162). Vietnam is still facing deforestation, which is

considered the most ecologically severe issue, as primary forest cover has dropped down

below 10% of the national area (Lang, 1996, p. 225). Poor operation of State Forest

Enterprises pushes pressures to millions of hectares of forest land under their control,

which ought to be transferred to other users (Sunderlin, 2006, p. 392). Among the future

expected users, traditional community institutions are potentially crucial foundation for

community forestry development (ibid, p. 393).

2.2. Legal framework in land and forest management in Vietnam

2.2.1. Laws on land

The most recent Land Law of 2003 aims at accelerating industrialization and

urbanization, so individuals or enterprises, who are considered as “more (economically)

effective” land users are given priority to get land rights (NAV, 2003). Community is

recognized as a land user for the first time under this law (Article 9, Section 3). However,

community land rights have been obstructed and poorly implemented so far because of

complicated procedures and the underestimation of the social and cultural values of the

community. Community is defined by the law as “village-level residential community,

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which share common traditional customs or lineage” (NAV, 2003), and the representative

of the community should be the village head. That is not suited to reality of cultural

diversity, where a wide range and various types of linkages which constitute a certain

community exist. Circular 38/2007/TT-BNN requires not only consent, application, and

plan of forest management from community, but also forest inventory procedure and

professional assessment of the forest situation (MARD, 2007). That imposes considerable

expenditure, which an ordinary community cannot afford.

2.2.2. Law on environmental protection

The Law on Environmental Protection provides main principles for environmental

relations (NAV, 2005). Practically, Vietnam’s Agenda 21 issued by the Prime Minister in

2004 is aligned with United Nations Agenda 21 and international sustainable

development. Though the Agenda rhetorically considers environmental protection as

indispensable, it insists “economic development as the central task in the coming stage of

development” (PMV, 2004).

2.2.3. Law on forest protection and development

Law on forest protection and development stipulates managing mechanisms, rights and

obligations of forest users in management, protection, development, and use of forest

(NAV, 2004) . Vietnam’s Agenda 21 seeks to “[s]trengthen the State management system

of equitable use and protection of forest resources, involving active participation of

community”. Though participation is mentioned in Agenda 21, it is not consistently

implemented in reality. Conventional top-down approaches by state agencies could

include little local consultation and, in many cases, local people gain poorly from that

process (Lang, 1996, p. 226; An, 2006, p. 86).

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2.3. Impacts of state enterprises and private companies on land and forest management

Impacts on forest management and exploitation caused by state and private sector is a

critical issue. Technocratic governments accelerate forest destruction to serve the elites

instead of ensuring benefits for an increasing mass population (Lohmann, 1995, p. 23).

State and private businesses prefer to convert forest land to monoculture cash crops

(Colchester, 1995, p. 11). When resources are commercialized, income disparity, social

gaps, and environmental problems emerge, and cultural diversity is negatively impacted

(Wright, 1994, p. 525; Lohmann, 1995, p. 33; Colchester, 1995, p. 315; Beck and Fajber,

2006, pp. 300-302).

Modern administration and market mechanisms have stressed considerable impacts on

traditional communities and their natural resources. Part 3 will discuss a particular case

study, which reflects local response to solve problems caused by such impacts.

Part 3: Case study of customary law and forest management of a Thai ethnic

community in Central Vietnam

3.1. Natural and socio-economic setting of the community

Hanh Dich is a mountainous remote commune of Que Phong district, Nghe An province,

north-central Vietnam (SPERI, 2011). The commune shares borders with Laos to the west

(see map in Annex 1). There are 11 villages and 3,128 people living in the commune, most

of whom are indigenous Thai ethnic group. Currently, Hanh Dich commune has relatively

low population density, high forest area per capita (see Annex 2). Therefore the local

population is not yet facing highly constraints of land and forest shortage as those in other

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localities do. However, local people are increasingly facing a lack of cultivating land and

forest due to the land right claims to large forest areas by the state protection board, state

forest enterprises, and private companies. Other factors, such as population growth and

forest exploitation by outsiders, are also considerable. The rapid forest degradation is

alarming, especially for forest areas under state and private companies (ibid).

3.2. History, cultural values, and customary law

The Thai ethnic group migrated from northern Thanh Hoa province and Laos, and first

settled in Que Phong and surrounding districts in 15th century (ELM, 2008). Some clans

settled in Hanh Dich commune 200 years ago (TEW, 2003). Thai ethnic people have a

strong sense of community spirit (ELM, 2008). Traditionally each village should have

common sacred spaces, such as Lak Sua, San, and Dong. Lak Sua is a holy tree belonging

to San sacred area. This tree is a symbolic spot, on which the first Thai settlers had

attached their clothes to worship local spirits and apply for the community settlement.

Once every year, community members should contribute offerings, select an owner of the

worshipping ceremony, then gather and enjoy a community event at San area. Dong is a

traditional cemetery of the village, that should be placed in western area of the village.

Local people believe that Lak Sua and other trees at San and Dong areas should be strictly

protected for sacred reason. Therefore each traditional community had been keeping

certain forest areas very well before the recent impacts from outsiders (ibid).

Thai people maintain a traditional universal vision, which describes three layers of

worlds: Muong Then (paradise), Muong Din (secular world), and Muong Boc Dai (beings

under earth) (ELM, 2008). The community has a saying: ‘Hit khong song chan’, which

means a community member is supposed to abide by both systems: law and customs. The

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spirit of a dead person can reach Muong Then whenever that person has completed human

duties, and the children of that person accomplish funeral procedures required by the

community customary law. Otherwise the spirit is believed to hang about as a nomad.

That forces everyone to try to become a good member of the community, with a

cooperative sense and mutual assistance (ibid).

3.3. Traditional cultivation and local wisdoms

Thai people traditionally combine slope dry rice and wet rice terrace agriculture. A recent

field study released that local Thai people preserve 17 different rice varieties (SPERI,

2008). Thai people are experts in using water flow effectively for fish raising, rice

husking, and recently generating small-scale electricity (ibid). They have plentiful

knowledge of using forest non-timber products, especially herbs. Herbal healers (both

men and women) are not only knowledgeable in herbal medicine, but also respected by

local people. They constitute the village elders and the traditional leadership (TEW,

2003). On the basis of belief system, customary law, and abundant knowledge of

resources and cultivation, Thai people have been harmoniously co-existing with nature for

many generations. Therefore, resources, especially forest and water are protected well in a

traditional way (ibid).

3.4. NGOs approach to forest management and protection

3.4.1. Cultural learning and adapting, bottom-up approach

Starting from learning cultural values of the local community, Towards Ethnic Women

(TEW), a Vietnamese non-governmental organization (NGO) and its successor

organization – Social Political Ecology Research Institute (SPERI) have obtained

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understanding and shown respect towards community values (see Section 3.2 and 3.3).

The objectives and strategies of every supporting project are based on bottom-up

approach, and the understanding of the needs and suggestions from local people (TEW,

2003). Through research, TEW staff found that a large forest area was under state

management, for instance, 11,050.3 ha of the communal forest land was managed by a

state enterprise. Base on local people’s needs, TEW supported land allocation programme,

which can offer them long-term rights with forest land certificates. Land allocation

support was carried out in 2003. It began with learning and adapting to the people’s needs

and initiatives, then solving conflicts within and between community and outside actors.

The communal leaders and people made an effort to lobby, so as to take back 100 ha of

forest from Phu Phuong state forest enterprise to local control. That resulted in

confirmation by land certificates of long-term use of a total 3,360 ha of forest land, which

were allocated to 360 households and 16 local mass organizations in Hanh Dich commune

(TEW, 2003).

Participatory land allocation, study tours, sharing local knowledge, and integrated

cultivation were also supported (SPERI, 2009). People got knowledge of their forest and

land areas, rights and obligations toward land because of their active participation in

forest exploration and demarcation, and various discussions on customary and statutory

laws on land. Local people’s knowledge, successes, failures, and lessons drawn are not

merely shared within community, but also with other communities. Study tours,

knowledge exchanges are good opportunities for people to initiate common actions that

provide the foundations for various networks (ibid).

3.4.2. Lessons from community herbal forest management and protection

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As well as other interest groups, the group of herbal medicine have set up regulations to

clarify members’ rights and responsibilities, operation mechanism, and relations with

other actors (SPERI, 2009). Base on the suggestions and the needs of herbalist group

members for protection and use of some forest areas under communal management,

which contain numerous species of herbs, the group leaders made and sent an application

to communal authorities. Communal authorities understood that they could rely on the

group strength and herbalists’ reputation to protect forest and fulfill their responsibilities.

Upon the forest allocation decision made by the communal authority, the herbalist group

demarcated the area, carried out inventory of herbs, and attached regulations and sign

boards, even scripts on stones, which claimed their forest land rights. So far community

herbal forests are protected well though surrounding areas are under pressure of

exploitation and degradation (HDHMG, 2009).

3.5. Obstacles and possibilities of cooperation between customary law and statutory law

in land and forest management and protection.

Poor cultural sensitivity and prevalent ethnocentrism among the mainstream imposes bias

about ethnic people and an intention to introduce majority Kinh values and technologies

to ‘modernize’ ethnic groups (Rambo and Jamieson, 2003, p. 166). Cultural sensitivity

heavily influences vision, momentum, and behaviour of outsiders, especially

administrative top-down approach to ethnic development. That also causes a critical

obstacle to decentralization and CBNRM. Even when certain decentralization and

reallocation of resources happens, it tends to serve economic elites rather than peripheries

(ibid, p. 169). Nationally, state forest protected boards and national parks remain large

areas of forest (see Annex 2). Coping with this trend by way of community and local

people’s land rights, forest tenure, and practice of customary laws remain a critical

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challenge. However, the state requirement and new trend of decentralization and

promotion of ethnic culture are introduced at national and local level. That encourages

different agencies to be interested in learning and combining customary law with formal

system.

Conclusion

This paper has explored the scholarship on environmental discourses and provided an

overview of policies and laws on forest management. It has also reviewed the important

role of ethnic communities in natural resource management and protection. Without local

people’s involvement, it is hard to obtain a win-win situation in dealing with

environmental (particularly forest) protection and poverty reduction. Therefore, for the

sake of environmental protection (explicitly land and forest in this case) and local

people’s livelihoods, it is critical to challenge the authority and the role of environmental

bureaucrats. There is a clear need for decentralization and reallocation of land and forest

to local people’s direct management.

Lessons and success of Thai ethnic community herbal forest in Hanh Dich commune

become a model and a potential alternative to administrative and economic rationality. In

order to replicate this pilot model, the government should apply forest allocation process

in a flexible way. The procedure should involve results from community-based forest

inventory rather than purely from expertise, so as to reduce administrative cost and make

forest allocation to community feasible.

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For the improvement of ethnic development programmes, learning and respecting cultural

diversity are required. The increase of research groups working with indigenous peoples

is promising for learning and building up suitable models of upland development (Rambo

and Jamieson, 2003, p. 170). In this process, the emphasis of merely one direction – either

statutory or customary law – is not sufficient. Based on improvement of understanding,

respect and willingness to cooperate, opportunities will arise to enable actors from the two

systems to ensure sound resource management and so assure both state interests and

community rights.

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Annexes

Annex 1: Map of the research area

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Nghe An province

Annex 2: Data (population, land, and forest of different levels)

Hanh Dich commune (*)

Que Phong district (**)

Nghe An province

(***)

Vietnam (****)

Population (persons) 3,128 63,489 3,123,084 86,024,600

Natural area (ha) 18,019.27 189,543 1,649,850 33,105,100

Forest area (ha) 15,719.38 158,506 911,808 14,757,800

Land area per capita

(ha/person)

5.76 2.98 0.53 0.38

Forest area per capita (ha/person)

5.02 2.49 0.29 0.17

Forest area allocated to individual, households (ha)

20,017.57 3,425,500

Forest area allocated to communities

6,833.31 na 2,792,946

Protected area by (basically managed state protection boards (ha)

3,728.4 49,880.5 375,118.4 2,054,700

Special use forest (basically managed by national parks) (ha)

na 9,955.59 200,211.3 6,124,900

Forest area managed by state enterprises (ha)

na 13,288.3 83.174,66

Forest area managed by private companies (ha)

na 24,943

Notes:

(*) Data from report of Hanh Dich communal herbal medicine group (2009) and SPERI (2011).

(**) Data from website of Programme 135: http://chuongtrinh135.vn/Default.aspx?tabid=134&News=1430&CatID=13

(2010); SPERI (2011).

(***) Data from website of Nghe An province: http://www.nghean.gov.vn/infm/default.asp?m=2&s=33&p=1 , http://www.nghean.gov.vn/infm/default.asp?m=2&s=34&p=1 , and http://www.monre.gov.vn/v35/default.aspx?tabid=428&cateID=4&id=4340&code=PUKSAV4340

(****) Data from websites of the General Statistics Office, the Government, Wikkipedia: http://www.gso.gov.vn/default.aspx?tabid=386&idmid=3&ItemID=9834 , http://www.gso.gov.vn/default.aspx?

tabid=386&idmid=3&ItemID=9835, http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C6%B0%E1%BB%9Dn_qu%E1%BB%91c_gia_%E1%BB

%9F_Vi%E1%BB%87t_Nam , http://enviroscope.iges.or.jp/modules/envirolib/upload/370/attach/p69-73_Vietnam.PDF , http://www.chinhphu.vn/cttdtcp/en/about_vietnam08.html , and http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/6_11_ky_yeu_hoi_thao__1_.pdf

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Annex 3: Some pictures of the research community activities and forest

Landscape of the research area Traditional house on stilts of Thai people

A Thai women and handicraft work Women from different ethnic groups, different localities are sharing color dying knowledge

A ceremony for granting of land right certificate

Herbalists in front of a sign board on a rock at the gate of the community herbal forest

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Annex 3: Some pictures of the research community activities and forest

Landscape of the research area Traditional house on stilts of Thai people

A Thai women and handicraft work Women from different ethnic groups, different localities are sharing color dying knowledge

A ceremony for granting of land right certificate

Herbalists in front of a sign board on a rock at the gate of the community herbal forest

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