Failure of Community Forest Based Management in Vietnam
Failure of Community Forest Based Management in Vietnam
Introduction
Prior the early 1990s, top down model of forest management with dominant control of government over the forest had been applied in developing countries (Tole 2010, p.1312). As the paradigm resulted in negative economic and environmental outcomes, it has replaced by decentralisation with different levels including community based forest management (CBFM). In theory, CBFM can strengthen democratisation of forest management by empowering local communities in exploiting and controlling the natural resource. It also contributes to equal benefit distribution and provides new and higher incomes for local people (Nygren 2005). However, being applied in Vietnam, CBFM has demonstrated poor performance with three emerging problems of no or little improvement of local livelihoods leading an increase of illegal logging, degraded forest and ecosystem, and conflict between local people and national and local authorities.
Recognising the above challenges of CBFM, the paper aims to find out why the management model fails in Vietnam by using the theory of sustainable governance of common-pool resources (CPRs) and political economy to analyse how institutional arrangement and relationship of powerful actors containing local and central governments and state forest enterprises affect the formulation and implementation of CBFM. This paper commences with an overview of CBFM model, reason for application of CBFM in Vietnam, and introduction of the theoretical framework. The next part analyses the causes of CBFM failure in Vietnam on the aspect of institutional arrangement and political economy. The last section proposes some possible solutions to address the emerging issues of CBFM for improving its policy development and implementation.
Literature Review Overview of Community Based Forest Management
Community based forest management is a paradigm in which the exploitation and management of forest land is
Introduction
Prior the early 1990s, top down model of forest management with dominant control of government over the forest had been applied in developing countries (Tole 2010, p.1312). As the paradigm resulted in negative economic and environmental outcomes, it has replaced by decentralisation with different levels including community based forest management (CBFM). In theory, CBFM can strengthen democratisation of forest management by empowering local communities in exploiting and controlling the natural resource. It also contributes to equal benefit distribution and provides new and higher incomes for local people (Nygren 2005). However, being applied in Vietnam, CBFM has demonstrated poor performance with three emerging problems of no or little improvement of local livelihoods leading an increase of illegal logging, degraded forest and ecosystem, and conflict between local people and national and local authorities.
Recognising the above challenges of CBFM, the paper aims to find out why the management model fails in Vietnam by using the theory of sustainable governance of common-pool resources (CPRs) and political economy to analyse how institutional arrangement and relationship of powerful actors containing local and central governments and state forest enterprises affect the formulation and implementation of CBFM. This paper commences with an overview of CBFM model, reason for application of CBFM in Vietnam, and introduction of the theoretical framework. The next part analyses the causes of CBFM failure in Vietnam on the aspect of institutional arrangement and political economy. The last section proposes some possible solutions to address the emerging issues of CBFM for improving its policy development and implementation.
Literature Review Overview of Community Based Forest Management
Community based forest management is a paradigm in which the exploitation and management of forest land is
References: Boissier, M, Sheil, D, Basuki, I, Wan, M & Le, H 2009, ‘Can engaging local people’s interests reduce forest degradation in Central Vietnam?’, Biodiversity Conservation, vol. 18, pp. 2743-2757. Reed, S 2008, ‘Stakeholder participation for environmental management: A literature review’, Biological Conservation, vol. 141, pp. 2417-2431.