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 Vietnam

1. 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

2. 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.
2

3. 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”.
3

4. 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.
4

5. 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,
5

6. 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
6

7. 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
7

8. 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,
8

9. 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).
9

10. 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
10

11. 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
11

12. 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
12

13. 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
13

14. 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
14

15. 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.
15

16. 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.
16

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20. Annexes
Annex 1: Map of the research area
Nghe An
province
20

21. Annex 2: Data (population, land, and forest of different levels)
Hanh Dich Que Phong Nghe An Vietnam
commune (*) district (**) province (****)
(***)
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 5.76 2.98 0.53 0.38
(ha/person)
Forest area per capita 5.02 2.49 0.29 0.17
(ha/person)
Forest area allocated to 20,017.57 3,425,500
individual, households
(ha)
Forest area allocated to 6,833.31 na 2,792,946
communities
Protected area by 3,728.4 49,880.5 375,118.4 2,054,700
(basically managed state
protection boards (ha)
Special use forest na 9,955.59 200,211.3 6,124,900
(basically managed by
national parks) (ha)
Forest area managed by na 13,288.3 83.174,66
state enterprises (ha)
Forest area managed by na 24,943
private companies (ha)
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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22. 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 Herbalists in front of a sign board on a rock at
certificate the gate of the community herbal forest
22

23. 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 Herbalists in front of a sign board on a rock at
certificate the gate of the community herbal forest
22