This approach has been tested in a wetland conservation project in Phu My village, Kien Luong District, Kien Giang Province in Vietnam.. Unlike other protected areas in Vietnam where res
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Combining biodiversity conservation with poverty alleviation - a case study in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam
Tran Triet a
a
International Crane Foundation , Southeast Asia Program, and University of Science, Vietnam National University , Ho Chi Minh City
227 Nguyen Van Cu, District 5, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam Published online: 12 Mar 2010
To cite this article: Tran Triet (2010) Combining biodiversity conservation with poverty alleviation - a
case study in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam, Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management, 13:1, 41-46, DOI: 10.1080/14634980903566667
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Trang 2alleviation - a case study in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam
Tran Triet
International Crane Foundation, Southeast Asia Program, and University of Science, Vietnam National University
-Ho Chi Minh City 227 Nguyen Van Cu, District 5, -Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam
ttriet@gmail.com
In many developing countries there is a prevailing conflict between biodiversity conservation and the need for poverty alleviation One possible solution for solving that conflict is to find ways that help poor people directly benefit from conservation activities This approach has been tested in a wetland conservation project in Phu My village, Kien Luong District, Kien Giang Province in Vietnam The 2,000-hectare seasonally inundated grassland, dominated by the sedge Lepironia articulata (Cyperaceae), in Phu
My Village is the last of its kind remaining in the Mekong Delta In November 2004, a new model of protected area was therefore established Unlike other protected areas in Vietnam where resource exploitation is prohibited, this is an “open” protected area in the sense that the local Khmer ethnic minority people are still allowed to harvest Lepironia as they have been doing for hundreds of years The project provides local people with skills training and production equipment so that they can make fine handicrafts from the Lepironia they harvest The project also helps with marketing handicraft products to higher profitable export markets After three years of operating, the daily income of people who participated was on average twice as much as it was before the project began The unique remnant wetland is protected, which would otherwise have been turned into a rice cultivation area according to the previous land use planning of Kien Giang Province.
Keywords: Lepironia, sustainable rural development, Kien Giang
Introduction
Located in the southwest corner of the Mekong
Delta, the Ha Tien Plain is a geological anomaly – a
shallow basin in which sheet floodwaters pool for a
long duration each year, creating its characteristic
acid-prone, inundated grasslands These grasslands
are diminishing rapidly, along with other plant
com-munities: saltwater mangrove, coastal lagoon,
fresh-water grassland and limestone karst vegetation due
mainly to agricultural and aquaculture development
and limestone mining for cement production (Triet
et al., 2000)
Classified in its natural state as ‘unproductive’,
the Ha Tien Plain has been the testing ground
for several episodes of failed economic develop-ment, including forestry (22,000 hectares of
aban-doned Eucalyptus plantation), rice (extremely low
yield) and the ongoing boom in shrimp aquaculture (highly acidic water requiring constant neutraliza-tion) (Triet, 2004) These activities are failing to alleviate long term poverty in the region while si-multaneously destroying the ‘natural capital’ which could power a sustainable economic engine for the region
Far from being unproductive, the Ha Tien grass-lands support a wide array of species diversity of both plants and animals (Triet et al., 2000; Triet, 2001) Yet the value assigned to that biodiver-sity has been low – due to Viet Nam’s legitimate 41
Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management, 13(1):41–46, 2010 Copyright C 2010 AEHMS ISSN: 1463-4988 print / 1539-4077 online
Trang 342 Triet / Aquatic Ecosystem Health and Management 13 (2010) 41–46
concern for ensuring its own food security and
rais-ing its citizens out of poverty The centrally planned
economy rewards provinces for attaining production
targets for rice and other low valued staples and in
doing so, provides no incentive to include
conserva-tion within its land use mix The natural capital of
the Plain is therefore being heavily exploited
with-out bringing significant economic gain to the local
population
The problem facing the Ha Tien Plain is a near
universal one in the developing world – the
per-ceived conflict between development and
conser-vation Some new models of sustainable economic
development need to be implemented to break
this downward spiral Recently, there has been a
shift from expert-based approach to participatory,
community-based approaches in conservation
man-agement (Agrawal and Gibson, 1999; Berkes 2004)
Located within the Ha Tien Plain, the
2000-ha wetland of Phu My Village, Kien Luong
Dis-trict, Kien Giang Province supports the last
ex-tensive remnant of Lepironia grassland ecosystem
(named after the dominant sedge species Lepironia
articulata - Cyperaceae) of the Mekong river delta
(Figure 1) The Phu My wetland is not only
impor-tant for biodiversity conservation, but also provides
an economic base to the Khmer ethnic minority who
harvest Lepironia for production of woven goods.
Established in November 2004, the “Phu My
Lepironia grassland conservation and sustainable
use” project (hereafter referred to as the Phu My
project) seeks to protect this important wetland by
implementing an novel model that combines nature
conservation with improving daily income of
lo-cal people whose livelihood depends upon
harvest-ing natural resources from the wetland The project
began by successfully convincing the Kien Giang
province authority to grant protection status for the
Phu My wetland Unlike in many other “traditional”
protected areas, local people in Phu My still have
access to natural resources, but it is now organized
in a more sustainable way
Since its inauguration in November 2004, the
project has been managed by the Southeast Asia
Program of the International Crane Foundation
Funding for the first three years (2004–2006) came
mainly from the World Bank (through the
De-velopment Market Award the International Crane
Foundation received at the end of 2003) and from
the International Finance Corporation In 2007, the
project received the UN-HABITAT’s Dubai
Interna-tional Award for Best Practices in Improving Living
Environment For the period 2008–2009, fund-ing for project implementation came mainly from Holcim – Vietnam Limited Company
The situation before the Initiative began
The Khmer ethnic minority, the main ethnic group of Phu My’s inhabitants, have long been
harvesting Lepironia, but only for making simple
household products The products made are of low value – a mat taking two days to make, for example, will be sold for 10,000 VND (approximately $0.70
US) Due to this low profit margin, the Lepironia
is being harvested in an unsustainable manner as households must increasingly produce a higher vol-ume of goods to sustain themselves
Since early 1990s, the provincial government started development plans to convert natural rem-nant wetlands in the Ha Tien Plain into agricultural areas In Phu My, however, strong acidic soils and the lack of freshwater supply made the land unsuit-able for rice cultivation A feasibility study prepared
by scientists from Can Tho and Ho Chi Minh City
National University showed that the natural
Lepiro-nia wetland landscape was deeply valued by local
Khmer ethnic minority people who have inhabited the area for hundreds of years (Triet, 2004) Main-taining the area in its natural state is therefore eco-logically sound and culturally just
Obectives and Strategies
The priority of the project is to preserve the unique, biodiversity-rich wetland remaining in Phu
My Village The main goal is to ensure that the use
of natural capital does benefit local people by max-imizing the income they receive from sustainable use of wetland resources The project seeks to:
r protect the Phu My wetland
r promote sustainable use of Lepironia
r increase income of local people
r promote community-based management of
natu-ral resources These objectives were formulated as a result of
a feasibility study in which a social survey was conducted to document local community’s opin-ions, perceptions and valuation regarding wetland resources and values and how to best manage the area (Triet, 2004) Buddhist belief is an important cultural aspect of the Khmer community living in
Trang 4Figure 1 The project site: Phu My Village, Kien Luong District, Kien Giang Province.
Phu My Village Project’s goals, objectives and
ac-tivities were developed with close consultation with
the supreme monks of the village The management
strategy is to create an “open” protected area where
the access to wetland resources continues and is
be-ing organized in a sustainable manner
In developing this alternative, the intention is to
demonstrate to other residents of the Ha Tien Plain
– and the government officials who administrate
them – the validity of this approach and
encour-age them to adopt similar techniques A wholesale
switch from rice or shrimp is implausible – but it
may help to conserve the last remaining fragments
of grassland
Process
The project seeks to redirect the Lepironia
prod-ucts toward higher value markets – such as the bur-geoning tourist markets in Ho Chi Minh City, where
a handbag typically sells for $3.00 US or more Sell-ing into such markets significantly increased house-hold incomes, despite the additional transportation costs
Since the establishment of the project, local peo-ple are still allowed to harvest Lepironia inside the protected area The project provided local villagers with skill training so that they can make fine hand-icraft products, and help with marketing so that
Trang 544 Triet / Aquatic Ecosystem Health and Management 13 (2010) 41–46
villagers can sell their products to higher profitable
markets Besides providing a better return for their
labor, new fine handicraft products do not consume
as much raw materials as the traditional handicrafts
and thus reduce the pressure of resource harvesting
Land encroachment by some local inhabitants,
which happened before the project, has still been
continuing By cooperating closely with the local
community and authorities, land encroachment was
prevented to some extent Illegally occupied lands
were spotted early by local people and reported to
village authorities who then enforced the return of
occupied lands to the project
Over-exploitation of Lepironia is another
impor-tant issue Before the project, there was free access
to the area for Lepironia harvesting People from
outside the area often applied indiscriminate
har-vesting techniques They cut all Lepironia plants,
both short and long, yet took only the long ones
Local villagers harvest not by cutting, but by pulling
up the plants and the roots and only select the ones
that are long enough for weaving This traditional
method is more laborious but does not deplete the
grassland as quickly as the “cut” method A new
regulation was issued by Phu My village authorities
to ban this “cut” method and to limit the access only
for villagers of the project area Illegal
exploita-tion was reduced but is still happening from time to
time Solving this problem is an ongoing effort that
requires much time, patience and good people skills
from the project management team
The project regularly carries out monitoring and
eradication of invasive alien species in and around
the protected area Mimosa pigra – a highly invasive
weed which has started to invade into wetlands of
the project area, is a primary focus of the
erad-ication effort With assistance from the village’s
Buddhist pagodas, environmental education
activ-ities were conducted to raise awareness within the
local community about the conservation importance
of the project area There is a unique cooperation
among local community, Buddhist pagodas,
gov-ernmental authorities (village and provincial
lev-els), international NGO and development agencies,
academic institutions and private companies in the
implementation of this project
Results Achieved
The project established a wetland protected area
of 2,890 ha in Phu My commune, Kien Luong
Dis-trict, Kien Giang Province, Vietnam, conserving the
last remnant of Lepironia grassland in the Mekong
Delta The project is supervised by a steering com-mittee consisting of representatives of project part-ners, including provincial and district agencies, lo-cal community, donors and academic institutions After three years of operation, the project now involves 200 out of 350 families living in the project area An average mat-making laborer can earn a net income of 30,000 VND a day while a handbag-making laborer can earn 50,000 VND a day Average income of people making Lepironia products before the project was about 8,000 to 10,000 VND a day After the project was established, with active surveillance and enforcement by both project staff and local volunteers, human disturbances and en-croachment in the new protected area were reduced, leading to an improvement of the biodiversity value
of the project area The annual Sarus crane count, carried out by the International Crane Foundation
in 2005, recorded 45 cranes in the project area
-a signific-antly higher number of cr-anes visited the area as compared to the year before; the number of cranes recorded in Phu My in 2006 and 2007 an-nual censuses were 41 and 131, respectively (Hoa
et al., 2007) The project area was also included
in the newly established Kien Giang Biosphere Re-serve approved by UNESCO in 2007
By working with district and provincial author-ities, and having strong support from the local community, the project successfully prevented the digging of a canal proposed by a shrimp farming company located nearby, which would have cut through the project area and potentially caused many adverse impacts to the wetland and its wildlife
At the provincial level, the project implemen-tation resulted in a change in provincial economic development planning, leading to the establishment
of a protected area on land that had been planned for agricultural development At the district and village levels, new regulation was issued which promoted sustainable harvesting of wetland resources in the project area
On a broader level, the Phu My project demon-strates the benefits of multi-use land management Land reform is a recent phenomenon in Viet Nam and as such, there are many cases where conflicts exist This is particularly so in less industrialized provinces like Kien Giang, where the pressure to stimulate economic growth and provide land tenure are more acute Officials are caught in the middle -they understand these pressures, but often have in-adequate data available on which to base land use
Trang 6planning decisions The Ha Tien Plain is a case in
point – it has suffered due to the assignment of
blan-ket land use designations, rather than land use based
on an assessment of its natural capital The
result-ing monocultures have destroyed 98% of the Plain’s
natural habitat and made the population over-reliant
on single agricultural commodities (Triet, 2001)
A much more ‘balanced portfolio’ is required - a
multi-use model based on sustainable management
principles The Phu My project is a first step towards
such a portfolio
Sustainability
Financial
Even though the project operation is not for
profit, the production of handicrafts, however, can
bring a certain amount of income for project
man-agement The goal is to for the project to be
self-sustained financially Yet to be completed is the
de-velopment of a business plan that will help guide the
economic aspects of the project in the long-term
Socio-cultural and economic: Leprironia
wet-land is part of the natural wet-landscape of the area
for hundreds of years, which is deeply appreciated
by local people
Weaving products from Lepironia is a traditional
livelihood activity of the Khmer community living
in Phu My Maintaining the wetland in its
natu-ral state and continuing Lepironia handicraft
pro-duction are both socially acceptable Economically,
this resource management option is also superior to
transforming the wetland into shrimp farming area
because the local people do not have the
knowl-edge of shrimp farming and lack sufficient capital
to invest in shrimp farming Additionally, shrimp
farming in the Mekong Delta is a very risky
busi-ness environmentally and socio-economically (EJF,
2003)
Environmental
Given the characteristics of wetland environment
in Phu My, which is unsuitable for rice or shrimp
cultivation, maintaining Phu My wetland in its
nat-ural condition is an environmentally-viable option
The exploitation of natural resources (Lepironia
sedge) is organised in a more sustainable way:
in-discriminate harvesting techniques are banned; the
volume of harvested raw material is reduced;
wet-land habitats are well protected and major
distur-bances are prevented
Institutional
By approving the implementation of the project, Kien Giang authority formally recognized Phu My wetland as a protected area This is a remark-able change in provincial policy where previously the entire area had been enlisted for agricultural expansion
The project has strong potential to be replicated elsewhere, especially in the Mekong delta region, both in Vietnam and in Cambodia In fact, the project ideas and activities have been applied in the areas surrounding Phu My village, which share similar environmental, cultural and ethnic charac-teristics The project received requests from many people living outside the project boundary and has provided skill training for more than 200 people from three nearby villages Many of them are now making handicraft products to be sold by the project
Increasing in the production of Lepironia products has lead to the protection of fragments of
Lepiro-nia wetlands in the surrounding area and therefore
reduced the exploitation pressure on the core zone
of the project site The boundary of the effective project area is much wider than the one administra-tively designated
Lessons Learned
The role and capacity of local villagers in man-aging their own resources from the wetland have been improved along with the implementation of the project Family income of local villagers partic-ipating in the project increased People have become more appreciative of the value of their wetland and have a better sense of ownership of the area This is perhaps the most important reason for the project to exist in the area
Cooperation among many different stakeholders
is important for projects that involve community development and nature protection Within that co-operation, local knowledge and expertise has been truly respected and mobilised
Experience gained from Phu My showed that it takes time to develop projects that involve nature conservation and community development, projects that require changes in governmental policies and regulations and the way people manage the nat-ural resource base The time necessary to make those changes is often longer than the one/two-year lifetime of typical projects receiving outside fund-ing It is important to build a strong support base
Trang 746 Triet / Aquatic Ecosystem Health and Management 13 (2010) 41–46
involving many different partners, both from within
and outside project areas or regions to sustain this
and similar projects into the future
Conclusions
The Phu My project has addressed three
prin-cipal problems: (1) the perceived conflict between
development and conservation, (2) the low value
assigned to the biodiversity in question and (3)
gov-ernment incentives to convert the land to other uses
A fourth problem can be added – a lack of
creativ-ity in the responses to these problems, particularly
in relation to the role the private sector can play
The project supplied that creativity by encouraging
a rural Khmer population benefit from the “reform”
policy of the government which encourages private
commerce and in doing so, demonstrated the
eco-nomic case for maintaining a high value ecosystem
in its present state Assigning an economic value to
an ecosystem like Phu My is among the first of its
kind in Vietnam
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the World Bank’s
Development Marketplace Program, International
Finance Corporation, Holcim Vietnam Limited
Company, UN-HABITAT and City of Dubai –
United Arab Emirates for providing funds for the
implementation of Phu My project We are
thank-ful to Vietnam National University in Ho Chi
Minh City, Can Tho University and the Interna-tional Crane Foundation for providing technical as-sistance Kien Giang and Phu My authorities are acknowledged for their partnership in the manage-ment of the Phu My project The author would like
to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their com-ments and suggestions, which greatly improved the manuscript
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