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VIETNAMESE UPLANDS: ENVIRONMENTAL AND

SOCIO-ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE OF FOREST LANDALLOCATION AND DEFORESTATION PROCESS

TIZIANO GOMIERO 1 , DAVIDE PETTENELLA 2 , GIANG PHAN TRIEU 3 andMAURIZIO G. PAOLETTI 4

1 Dipartimento di Biologia University di Padova, via U. Bassi, 58/b-35121-Padova, Italy(e-mail: tiziano.gomiero@libero.it); 2 Dipartimento Territorio e Sistemi Agro-forestali, University of

Padova, Agripolis, I-35020 Legnaro (PD), Italy (e-mail: dpettene@agripolis.unipd.it); 3 Department of Social Forestry, Ho Chi Minh City University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (e-mail: gtphan@ucdavis.edu);

4 Dipartimento di Biologia University di Padova, via U. Bassi, 58/b-35121-Padova, Italy(e-mail: paoletti@civ.bio.unipd.it)

( PRESENT ADDRESS: Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca per gli Alimenti e la Nurtrizione (INRAN),

Via Ardentina 546, 00178 Roma;

PRESENT ADDRESS: Graduate Group in Ecology, College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, University of California at Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA)

(Received 25 January 1999; accepted 23 November 2000)

Abstract. Vietnam, in the ongoing transition to market economies, has to cope with high rural poverty anda dramatic process of forest loss and environment degradation, particularly in the mountainous regions. Thegovernment considers rural poverty as the main cause of environment degradation, associated with slash-and-burn cultivation and to an unclear denition of property rights on forest land. In 1993, the governmentlaunched a Forest Land Allocation programme aiming to lease forest lands to individual households and,

on this basis, to solve food security problems, halt the increasing environment degradation and preserve theremaining forests.To evaluate the results of this land reform policy, two upland pilot communes have been intensively moni-

tored.The environmental and economic impacts of theforestland reform allocation in the twostudyareas arepresented, after providing a background on the Vietnamese situationof mountain zones. On the basis of thesendings, it is discussed as to whether the current forest land allocation process may actually promote localdevelopment and natural resources conservation, and under what conditions. Deforestation problems mustbe tackled also with new macroeconomic policies (e.g. credit programmes to support sustainable agriculturepractices) and social policy (e.g. reduction of demographic pressure), together with the reform of the Stateinstitutions (e.g. State Forest Enterprises) involved in management of the forest areas.

Key words: development policy, environment management, ethnic minorities, Forest Land Allocation,slash-and-burn, uplands, Vietnam.

1. Introduction

Vietnam is a highly populated developing country of southeast Asia under a process of transition to market economies initiated in the late 1980s. Along with socioeconomic prob-lems such as increased income disparity between urban and rural population, high ruralpoverty and internal massive migration, Vietnam also has to cope with forest loss and landdegradation, particularly in the mountainous regions.

Environment, Development and Sustainability 2: 119142, 2000. 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands .

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120 t. gomiero et al.

The government considers rural poverty as the main cause of environment degradation; it

is frequently associated with shifting cultivation (slash-and-burn practice) and to an uncleardenition of property rights on forest land. But, unlike the situation for agricultural landthere are key issues constraining the reform of traditional forest land tenure systems (Vuand Desloges, 1996). Policy and market failures seem to be frequent consequences of forestland privatisation policy in mountainous areas.

In order to assess the impacts of the Forest Land Allocation (FLA) governmental pro-grammes, two densely populated mountainous communes, severely affected by food secu-rity problems, were investigated. This paper, after providing a general background on theVietnamese socioeconomic and environmental situation, presents the results of these inves-tigations, focusing on whether the current process of privatisation of mountain forest landin Vietnam is promoting local development and natural resources conservation, and underwhich conditions. To monitor andevaluate theFLAimpacts, a list of indicators is presented.A discussion follows, where eld results are framed within the country context.

2. Vietnamese uplands: socioeconomic andenvironmental background

2.1. Socioeconomic situation

Vietnam is a very highly populated country with a rural population density of 1,071 peopleper square km (average population density about 235), the highest in Asia after Bangladesh(World Bank, 2000). In 19952000 the average growing rate has been 1.8% annually (FAO,1999; Boothroyd and Nam, 2000). However, in the countryside the growing rate is stillaround 2.32.4% per year (Boothroyd and Nam, 2000). Assuming that from 2000 to 2010the growing rate will be 1.7%, the population of Vietnam (78 million at present) will reach95 million in the year 2010, and 110 million by 2025 (FAO, 1999). For the uplands thesituation is even more serious because of the higher growth rate (up to over 3.0% per year Lindskog, 1992; Nguyen Van Thang, 1995; G-D-NGO Working Group, 1999; Fox et al.,2000) and the already, generally, poor or extremely poor living conditions (Rambo et al.,1995; G-D-NGO Working Group, 1999; FAO, 1999).

Vietnam is still very much agriculture based with 80% of its population living in thecountrysidewhere72%of theabout 32 million workingforce isemployed(industryaccountsfor just 15% World Bank, 1997; UNDP, 1998a) (Table I).

Theaverage incomeper capitain 1997 reached US$320 peryear but it was belowUS$ 200in the countryside, where 90% of the poor live (UNDP, 1998a; G-D-NGO Working Group,1999). Poverty, as measured by the adequacy of per capita expenditures, has declined in thelast 5 years: the total poverty line from 58% in 1993 to 25% in 1998 and the food povertyline from 37% in 1993 to 15% in 1998 (G-D-NGO Working Group, 1999).

The macroeconomic and structural reforms initiated in Vietnam in the late 1980s, mainlyconcerning agricultural land distribution to farmers and open market regime, have stabilisedthe economy and yielded remarkable success in economic development. Per capita income

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vietnamese uplands 121

TABLE I. Socioeconomic indicators for Vietnam.

Demographic dataPopulation (1998) 77 896 000 F

Growth rate 1.8Population density 235 persons per square kmUrban population 20%Rural population 80%

Yearly average income ( 1997 US $ )National average 300325Countryside 200