Browsing by Author "Nguyen, Tan Quang"

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Differentiation in Benefits from Forest Devolution: Empirical Study from Dak Lak Province, Central Highland of Vietnam
(2003) Nguyen, Tan Quang
"This paper presents results from a study about the impact of FLA on local households in two villages. It aims to understand the differentiated benefits that Dak laks program on devolution of forest management has brought to farm households in the study sites. Generally, concerned benefits that local households may derive include immediate material benefits, (timber, land, and NTFPs), future material benefits, and spiritual benefits. Due to the heterogeneity of local conditions, the foci of study in each village also differ. In the first village, the study gives more attention to the issues related to FLA upland conversion while in the second village the focus is on the issues related to extraction of timber. In both villages, NTFP and other benefits are of secondary importance due to their insignificance in the local conditions. "The study took place from March to September 2002 and I spent three months in each village. During the time in the village, both qualitative and quantitative data collection techniques were applied. The data set used for quantitative analysis comes from household census in both villages conducted by myself by the end of each stay."
Forest Devolution and Maize Production: An Analysis of Benefit Distribution along the Commodity Chain in Dak Lak, Vietnam
(2006) Nguyen, Tan Quang
"Since late 1990s, policy reforms in Dak Lak province, Central Highlands of Vietnam, have attempted to devolve responsibility of forest conservation to local communities. The reforms were based on the assumption that by transferring the ownership of forests to local communities would protect the allocated forest against unauthorized use and improve their livelihoods from forest based activities. Local communities are entitled to collect timber and non timber forest products and to use limited area of forest land for cultivation. "This paper undertakes a commodity chain analysis to contrast the decision by local communities to convert areas within devolved forests into cropping land, to detail how forest devolution shaped the benefits derived by local people and how these benefits were distributed along the commodity chain. The study also provides full account mechanisms that various actors along the commodity chain use to access, maintain, and control of natural resources. It emphasizes on the role of market in providing cash income for rural (poor) people. In addition, the paper brings attention to the important linkages between forest management and agricultural production. For upland farmers in Vietnam, it would be difficult to separate these two as they are integrated parts of their livelihoods."
Forest Devolution in Vietnam: Patterns of Differentiation in Benefits among Local Households
(2004) Nguyen, Tan Quang
"Proponents of forest devolution have argued so far that by involving local people in the course of forest management, forest devolution can improve economic efficiency in resource management. While empirical evidences show that outputs of devolution at local level remain unclear across different cases, the issue of how benefits from forest devolution is distributed among local people within a community arises. To this aspect, an important question is whether or not different households are in the position to get an equitable share of their benefits from forest devolution or is it the rich and powerful who reap most of these benefits, leaving little to the poor and powerless. This paper subjects this question to empirical analysis. The purpose of this paper is to examine the links between household productive resources and the endowments and entitlements from the devolved forests. With the help of the environmental entitlement framework, the paper applies a combined approach of institutional and econometric analyses to examine the outcomes of forest devolution in thirteen villages in Central Highlands of Vietnam. Forest devolution introduces institutional changes in property rights governing access to and control over forest resources. The environmental entitlement framework enables an in-depth look into the complex institutional arrangements in the study area. The econometric approach is then employed to identify and quantify the different patterns of benefits from the devolved forests. Findings from the study show a wide differentiation in the benefits acquired by different households in the study area. Among other factors, wealth, power and control over cultivated land are influential to the distribution of forest benefits."
Forest Tenure Reform in Vietnam: What Lessons Can Be Learned for Policy Implementation and Poverty Alleviation in Forest Communities?
(2008) Nguyen, Tan Quang; Nguyen, N. B.; Tran, Thanh Ngoc
"The last two decades have witnessed radical changes in forest tenure legal framework in Vietnam. While in early 90s, the state was the primary manager of forests, the approval of the Forest Protection and Development Law in 1991 and Land Law in 1993 opened the door to a national legal framework that took forest management out of solely state hands. Subsequent legal enactments have elaborated these forest management arrangements to include private property. In 2003 and 2004, revisions to the Land Law and Forest Protection and Development Law enabled legal recognition of community in managing land and forest resources. This evolving legal framework for local management and use of forests creates the potential for local people to benefit from forest use, and for forests to contribute to poverty reduction. "This paper provides an analysis of the on-the-ground pictures of the implementation of forest tenure reform in Hoa Binh (in the Northwest Mountain) and Dak Lak (in the Central Highlands) provinces in Vietnam. Using empirical evidences from eight villages, the authors argue that while forest land allocation (FLA) has been widely implemented, it has not been able to provide necessary power over forest to local people. The state still maintains significant control over the allocated forest area. The practice of power relation, pressure from market, active supports from donor funded projects and customary practices among other factors have contributed to shape forest tenure arrangements at village level. Furthermore, expected effect of FLA on poverty alleviation has not been reached. By contrast, there is a danger of reverse impact from FLA on poverty alleviation."
Traditional versus New Forms of Community Forest Management in Vietnam: Can they Contribute to Poverty Alleviation in Upland Forest Areas?
(2008) Nguyen, Tan Quang; Tran, Thanh Ngoc; Hoang, Tuan Huy
"In the early 2000s, the legal framework in Vietnam changed toward legal recognition of management of land and forest resources by communities. The change creates a potential for communities to benefit from forest use, and for forests to contribute to poverty reduction. "Examples in various parts of the country show that forest-dependent people have long been able to not only organize themselves to manage their local forest resources for their (daily) use but also to develop an equitable distribution system of the benefits from forests. This paper introduces two concrete cases where local forest resources have been collectively managed by local people in Dak Lak and Thua Thien Hue provinces of Vietnam. While the two cases illustrate significant attention being paid to an equitable distribution of benefits from forest, they also demonstrate two quite different approaches to local forest governance. "The Dak Lak case takes the audience to a village where community forest management has been recently introduced by a donor led development project. People in this village enjoy the legal recognition of their community forestry and commercial logging to timber from the forest. By contrast, the case of Thua Thien Hue introduces a village where local people have managed their forest for generations though no official legal recognition of this community forestry exists. People in the village have even developed concrete plans for management of the forest as well as for distribution of products harvested from this forest."