Forest based poverty alleviation in north eastern vietnam

Incentives in the PES scheme, encouraging forest dwellers to become involved in forest management, and voluntary payment schemes for tourism services can be shown to add a stable and sus

Forest-Based Poverty Alleviation

in North-Eastern Vietnam

This thesis is presented for the degree of

Doctor or Philosophy

Student’s name Giang Huu Nguyen

Edith Cowan University School of Science

Forest-Based Poverty Alleviation

in North-Eastern Vietnam

Giang Huu Nguyen

Submitted in fulfilment for the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy, Edith Cowan University (October, 2019)

i) Declaration

I certify that this thesis does not, to the best of my knowledge and belief:

(i) incorporate without acknowledgement any material previously

submitted for a degree or diploma in any institution of higher education;

(ii) contain any material previously published or written by another

person except where due reference is made in the text; or (iii) contain any defamatory material

(iv) I also grant permission for the Library at Edith Cowan University to

make duplicate copies of my thesis as required

Giang Huu Nguyen

Date

10th March 2019

Statement of Authority of access

This thesis may be made available for loan and limited copying in accordance with the

Copyright Act 1968.

ii) Abstract

The relationship between poverty and forest in developing countries like Vietnam is important because the poor rely on forest resources and poverty is often seen as a major cause of environmental degradation The overall aim of the thesis is to examine the way national policy has influenced household livelihood strategies for poor people in situations where access to forests is important to supplement income, and to examine the role of forest management in this process

To deal with the aim, we compared six villages in two provinces (Bac Kan and Thai Nguyen; three villages in each province) where conditions such as national policy, forest areas, forest type categories, socio-economic conditions, lifestyle, ethnicity, culture and livelihood strategies were similar Only location and form of forest management, were different Three instruments (village survey, annual household survey, and quarterly household survey), modelled and adapted on the Poverty Environment Network (PEN) prototype household questionnaires, were used in 184 households In addition, 57 people working directly in forest-related fields from different level of government (province, district, commune, village, National Park, Natural Reserve) were invited to participate in in-depth interviews, and 60 villagers living in the six villages were involved in group discussions

The mechanism used for the decentralization of forest management known as forest land allocation (FLA) was examined by considering the experiences of administrators and users from the village to the province level and benchmarking them against Ostrom’s eight design principles Areas were identified where policy and practice can be improved, including clarifying the rights between forest owners (communities, households, and individuals) and three forest-use categories (special-use forests, production forests and protection forests)

Forest management practices differed between the two provinces: sponsored Forest Protection Groups (FPGs) existed in Bac Kan, while forest protection by households’ responsibility was used

in Thai Nguyen FPGs can be shown to play a role in reducing the amount of forest products being collected and curtailing illegal activities Collective action in the form of FPG activities in Bac Kan include internal elements (forest patrols, village/FPG meetings, leader capacity building, cooperation, trust and honesty between villagers, and household characteristics) and external elements (the technical and funding support from international projects, and village recognition from a government agency administering a National Park) Together these elements can be held responsible for improved forest condition

For both provinces, about 15.2% of total household income was derived from forests, a consistent and significant contribution to livelihoods Principal Component Analysis of quarterly household income revealed seasonal increases mainly based on crop (maize, rice, root) and forest protection for Bac Kan, and seasonal increases for particular forest products (firewood, timber/poles) and crop (maize, rice) for Thai Nguyen Poor people in both provinces have less diverse income sources

By using poverty indices with and without forest income, and comparing with and without PES income between the two provinces, we can demonstrate that the poverty rate would double if different forms of forest income were to be excluded Incentives in the PES scheme, encouraging forest dwellers to become involved in forest management, and voluntary payment schemes for tourism services can be shown to add a stable and sustainable financial source that contributes to better forest protection and improved income for people who directly rely on forests

Overall, we built a novel forest-based poverty alleviation framework to apply wherever forest types, socio-economic conditions, livelihoods, culture, and livelihood strategies, are similar By using this framework, policymakers can develop appropriate plans/policies to target forest management and poverty alleviation

iii) Acknowledgements

First and foremost my lovely family, my wife and three beautiful princesses, have encouraged me

to undertake this Ph.D My wife, also my colleague, has accompanied me on this project journey,

as well as other rural development projects in Vietnam I hope I can give you as much support as you have given me, when time comes for you to do your PhD Our children Mai, Moon, and Mary Lou have always been my inspiration for my research In the most stressful times, they have always been the motivation for me to go on So, this thesis is for all of you

I also would like to express my special thanks to my principal supervisor, Professor Pierre Horwitz from the School of Science, for his kindness, constant support and advice throughout the course

of the research program During times of difficulty in both life and research, he was always there, giving me valuable advice The research presented significant challenges in data collection, data processing, data analysis, and writing, and the debates we had to find a common direction for the research project; to have come this far must be some measure of success Professor Pierre Horwitz, you are not only a great supervisor, but a second father Again, I would like to thank you especially

I would like to thank two other supervisory committee members for my thesis, Assoc Prof Dr Tran Quoc Hung (Faculty of Forestry, Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry, Vietnam) who helped me to organize field work in Vietnam, while Dr Aiden Fisher (School of Science, ECU) advised me in data analysis and gave me feedback for Chapters 4 and 5

I would like to thank: the enumerators (Miss Ma Thi Ngan, Mr Nong Van Tu, Mr Nong Van Su, and Mr Nguyen Van Duong) for helping me collect field data; the leaders of Province People’s Committee of Thai Nguyen and Bac Kan province who agreed to allow me to carry out this research; and all interviewees, village heads, 104 households in Thai Nguyen, and 80 households

in Bac Kan who agreed to participate directly in the study Without these contributions the thesis would not have been possible

In addition, I would like to take this opportunity to show my greatest appreciation to an academic writing consultant, Dr Helen Renwick, a helpful proof-reader for her help in editing Chapters 3, 4, and 5 of my thesis I also would like to show my greatest appreciation to Dr Saiyidi Mat Roni, lecturer in accounting at School of Business and Law, ECU, for his comments and advice on my income chapter (Chapter 5)

Finally, I wish to express a deep sense of gratitude and love to my friends and parents for their mental support and help, and their encouragement for me to complete this study and thesis

Table of Contents

i) Declaration i

ii) Abstract ii

iii) Acknowledgements iv

Table of Contents v

List of Tables ix

List of Figures x

List of Acronyms xi

Chapter 1: General introduction 1

1.1 Poverty and Natural Resources in Developing Countries 1

1.2 Forestry and poverty alleviation 3

1.3 Sustainable rural livelihood (SL) 5

1.4 Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) and Policies 8

1.5 Total economic forest value (TEV) 10

1.6 Aim 14

1.7 Thesis structure 15

Chapter 2: Methodology 16

2.1 Research context 16

2.2 Research design 21

2.3 Data collection 22

2.3.1 Secondary data collection 22

2.3.2 Primary data collection 23

2.3.2.1 In-depth interviews 23

2.3.2.2 Questionnaires 23

2.3.2.3 Participatory observation and photos 25

2.4 Database management and statistical method 29

2.5 Ethics 31

Chapter 3: Forest management decentralization in NE, Vietnam: theory, policy, and practice 32

Abstract 32

3.1 Introduction 32

3.2 Methods 36

3.3 Results and Discussions 39

3.3.1 Main policy context related to FLA in Vietnam 39

3.3.2 FLA since the two provinces separated 42

3.3.3 Common understandings of inadequacies and problems 47

3.3.3.1 Penalties 47

3.3.3.2 Rights 50

3.2.4 Conclusion 56

Chapter 4: The influence of Forest Protection Groups on the collection of forest products in public forest in North-Eastern Vietnam 58

Abstract 58

4.1 Introduction 59

4.2 Methods 61

4.2.1 Research design 61

4.2.2 Data collection 62

4.2.3 Data analysis 64

4.3 Results and Discussions 67

4.3.1 Form of forest protection 67

4.3.2 Baseline characteristics 71

4.3.3 Household use of forests 79

4.3.4 Social capital and community capacity 88

4.4 Conclusion and recommendations 91

Chapter 5: Rural subsistence incomes in forested region, NE Vietnam 94

Abstract 94

5.1 Introduction 95

5.2 Methods 97

5.2.1 Research design 97

5.2.2 Data collection 98

5.2.3 Data analysis 100

5.3 Results and discussions 101

5.3.1 Household socioeconomic characteristics 101

5.3.2 Income characteristics of the sample population 103

5.3.2.1 Annual income 103

5.3.2.2 Annual household income by wealth group 106

5.3.2.3 Household income by quarter 109

5.3.2.4 The influence of income sources to total quarterly household income 113

5.4 Conclusions and recommendations 121

Chapter 6: Payment for Forest Environmental Services in NE Vietnam: a case study in Bac Kan province 122

Abstract 122

6.1 Introduction 122

6.2 Research context and data analysis 123

6.2.1 Research design 123

6.2.2 Data collection and analysis 124

6.3 Results 125

6.3.1 PES context in Bac Kan 125

6.3.2 The steps to conduct PES in Bac Kan 130

6.4 Discussion 132

6.5 Conclusions 138

Chapter 7: Summary and linkages: Decentralization, forest management, household income, and poverty alleviation 140

7.1 Introduction 140

7.2 Decentralization, forest management, and household income 143

7.3 Forest-based poverty alleviation 148

7.4 Data validity and reliability, limitations, alternative explanations and further research 160

7.4.1 Data reliability and validity 161

7.4.1.1 Literature review 161

7.4.1.2 Field enumerator recruitment and training, and piloting the study 162

7.4.1.3 Data collection 163

7.4.1.4 Data analysis 166

7.4.2 Limitations, alternative explanations, and further research 166

7.4.2.1 Considerations of limitations in study design 166

7.4.2.2 Considerations of limitations in collection of data 169

References 172

Appendices 205

Appendix 1: Number of people were involved in this project 205

Appendix 2: Ethical Documents 206

Appendix 3: Questionnaires and checklist for the fieldwork 223

3 Quarterly household surveys (Q1-Q4) 245

4 Attrition (drop out) and temporary absence survey (ATA) 250

5 Checklist for in-depth interview 252

List of Tables

Table 1-1: Types of forest values and valuation techniques 11

Table 2-1: Forest area being managed by households in the research areas by village 20

Table 2-2: Number of households surveyed in the survey areas 25

Table 2-3: Other rural appraisal tools used for primary data selection 26

Table 2-4: Content, time and responsibility of the survey questionnaire 28

Table 2-5: Phases of thematic analysis 30

Table 3-1: The main policies related to land allocation 40

Table 3-2: The process of FLA in Thai Nguyen province from 2007 to August 2017 43

Table 3-3: The process of FLA in Bac Kan province from 2009 to August 2017 46

Table 3-4: Comparison of the right to possess, the right to use, and the right to dispose 51

Table 3-5: Comparison of land use rights between agricultural land and forest land 54

Table 3-6: Common understandings of inadequacies and problems in FLA 57

Table 4-1: Correlation matrix and correlation tests for eleven independent variables 77

Table 4-2: Household baseline characteristics by province 78

Table 4-3: The number of households collecting forest products 80

Table 4-4: Differences between provinces in terms of the time spent collecting resources 82

Table 4-5: Testing whether any household characteristics significantly influenced the collection 87 Table 5-1: Household socioeconomic characteristics against three wealth groups 102

Table 5-2: OLS regression results of log total income onto social-economic factors 105

Table 5-3: OLS regression results of log forest income onto social-economic factors 105

Table 5-4: OLS regression results of log forest income onto other sources income 106

Table 5-5: Annual household income sources by three wealth groups 108

Table 5-6: Forest income sources by three wealth groups in Bac Kan and Thai Nguyen 109

Table 5-7: Correlation and contribution 115

Table 6-1: K-factors applied in Bac Kan 127

Table 6-2: Summary of forest environmental services 129

Table 6-3: The process to conduct PES in Bac Kan 131

Table 7.1: Comparison private forest area 147

Table 7-2: Forest income divided by three forest use categories 149

Table 7-3: Forest income distribution in three household wealth groups 150

Table 7-4: Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) poverty indices 152

Table 7-5: Test-retest reliability in all six villages 165

List of Figures

Figure 1-1: General linkages between the SL, SFM, and forest value 14

Figure 2-1: Provinces and regions of Vietnam 17

Figure 2-2: Than Sa-Phuong Hoang Natural Reserve and three villages located 18

Figure 2-3: Ba Be National Park and three villages located 18

Figure 2-4: Mixed method approach used in this study 22

Figure 4-1: Thirteen reasons why householders decided to join an FPG in Bac Kan 69

Figure 4-2: Thirteen reasons why householders decided to join a contract in Thai Nguyen 71

Figure 4-3: Boxplots of the baseline characteristics of the six villages by each variable 73

Figure 4-4: Multidimensional scaling (MDS) plot the for six villages 75

Figure 4-5: MDS plot for 184 households 76

Figure 4-6: Box plots for the amount of forest products being collected by households 81

Figure 4-7: Comparison of elements of social capital and community capacity 90

Figure 4-8: Model working in forest management in Bac Kan province 93

Figure 5-1: Box plots for six income sources 104

Figure 5-2: Total quarterly household income in Bac Kan and Thai Nguyen 111

Figure 5-3: Quarterly forest income 112

Figure 5-4: PCA for households 117

Figure 5-5: Seasonal calendar for main crop species and forest products collected 120

Figure 6-1: PES cash flow in Vietnam and Bac Kan 130

Figure 6-2: Electricity retail price and ration of PES price from 2008-2015 138

Figure 7-1: Lorenz curve and the Gini index 154

Figure 7-2: Lorenz curve and the Gini index 156

Figure 7-3: Forest-based poverty alleviation framework 159

List of Acronyms

3PAD Pro-Poor Partnership for Agroforestry Development project ARFL Application for Recognition of Forest Land

CPCs Commune People's Committees

DPCs District People's Committees

EVN Vietnam Electricity

FLA Forest Land Allocation

FLASC Forest Land Allocation Steering Commission

FLAWG Forest Land Allocation Working Group

FPGs Forest protection groups

LCs Land Certificates

MARD Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development

MONRE Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment

NE North-Eastern (Vietnam)

NGO Non-Government Organization

NRM Natural resource management

NTFPs Non-timber forest products

PPC Province People's Committee

SFEs State-owned Forest Enterprises

SL Sustainable livelihood

VND Vietnamese Dong (national currency of Vietnam)

Chapter 1: General introduction

1.1 Poverty and Natural Resources in Developing Countries

Poverty eradication is still the biggest challenge facing humanity (The World Bank (2017) Of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, also referred to as Agenda 2030) adopted by

193 countries of the United Nations in 2015, the first, and arguably the most important goal, was

"end poverty in all its forms everywhere" by 2030 Although the global poverty rate has halved between 1990 and 2015, from 1.9 billion to 836 million, many people are still facing critical shortages of basic needs (UNDP, 2018) Currently, around 800 million people are living below US$ 1.25 per day, and every country in the world seeks to reduce its poverty rate

Poverty can be defined as a lack of physical or material well-being, low educational attainment, lower health care, and vulnerability with a lack of basic human rights and a lack of voice in societal affairs (World Bank, 2001) Vulnerability refers to exposure to the possibility of shocks to which the poor cannot respond, or cannot afford ways to deal with the consequences (Sen, 1999) Poverty alleviation, therefore, establishes activities that reduce these shortcomings of life (Sunderlin & Huynh, 2005), and reduces the likelihood that the marginally poor slip into poverty Under these circumstances, any additional sources of income become very important for households (FAO, 2003)

Forest products are important sources of income Three-quarters of the poor in developing countries are living in rural areas (FAO, 2018; The World Bank, 2007), and forest products are collected by poor people who rely, to varying degrees, on the direct benefits of the forest (Hogarth, Belcher, Campbell, & Stacey, 2013) Indeed, an estimated 90 percent of world’s poorest people rely on forests (Cohen, 2009), and approximately 350 million people living in, or around, forests depend on them “to a high degree” (IFAD, 2013) Moreover, around two billion people, accounting for one-third of the world’s population, use forest products, including firewood, charcoal, traditional medicines, and other non-timber forest products (NTFPs) (Agrawal et al., 2013) In addition, the empirical evidence also suggests that the livelihoods of the poor are more dependent on natural resources than non-poor people living in the same area/village, as has been observed in West Bengal India (Beck & Madan, 2000), Zimbabwe (Cavendish, 2000), South Africa (S Shackleton, Campbell, Lotz-Sisitka, & Shackleton, 2008), and for 51 case studies from 17 countries (Vedeld, Angelsen, Bojö, Sjaastad, & Kobugabe Berg, 2007) The crucial role of forest resources for human lives and livelihoods has been recognized in many studies worldwide (Adam

& Eltayeb, 2016; Mark Appiah et al., 2009; Coulibaly-Lingani, Tigabu, Savadogo, Odén, & Ouadbad, 2009; Das, 2010; M Fisher, 2004; Giliba, Lupala, Mafuru, Kayombo, & Mwendwa, 2010; Reddy & Chakravarty, 1999)

Since the poor often drawing heavily on forest resources, poverty is seen as a major cause of environmental degradation (Arnold, Powell, Shanley, & Sunderland, 2011), especially in areas where the poor rely on forests to source food, as well as other necessities, to ensure their livelihoods, resulting in an over-exploitation of forests Abuse over an extended period leads to degradation of natural resources and environmental degradation (Ribot, Lund, & Treue, 2010) A vicious cycle of poverty occurs when resources are exhausted leading to unstable livelihoods of rural people (WCED, 1987) To get out of this cycle, the World Bank (2001) argues that increasing all five types of capital of the household,human, natural, financial, social, and physical, will help them withstand exposure to risks and shocks Decisions on livelihood strategies will also depend

on a household’s five capitals (Adams, 2012) Since the livelihoods of the poor are more dependent on natural resources than other wealth groups, and they are the most vulnerable group when natural resources are degraded, forest-based poverty alleviation must deal with the links between: a) forms of livelihood such as agriculture, livestock, or other production activities (Adam & Eltayeb, 2016), b) natural resource management, and c) development and poverty reduction programs (Arnold et al., 2011)

The relationship between poverty rate and forest resources available in developing countries is crucial (Broegaard et al., 2017; D R Lee, Neves, Wiebe, Lipper, & Zurek, 2009), with most relevant studies demonstrating that the poorest people were living in or around forest areas (Pattanayak, Sills, & Kramer, 2004; Walelign, 2013) where income from forest resources is very important For instance, the need for subsistence for around three-quarters of the poor are highly reliant on forest resources (Barbier, 2010) Generally, an average share of forest income in total household income ranges from 15-39% and this rate can fluctuate within-country (Meilby et al., 2014), for example the income contribution is 27% in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia (Babulo et al., 2009) compared to 34% in Bale Highlands, Southern Ethiopia (Tesfaye, Roos, Campbell, & Bohlin, 2010) Strikingly, in some parts of the world, the share of forest income in total household income can be extremely high, such as 53% from activities carried out in the domestic forest in Cameroon (Lescuyer, 2013), and up to 74% for the lower income households in Bangladesh (Mohammad Abdullah, Stacey, Garnett, & Myers, 2016) Accordingly, there has been an increase in research examining both the potential of afforestation for poverty alleviation (Adhikari, Falco, & Lovett,

2007), and income from forest and environmental services to fill income gaps for poor people (Walelign & Øystein, 2013)

1.2 Forestry and poverty alleviation

Until the 1980s, much of Vietnam's population was living below the poverty line, with a negative pace of economic growth, increased national debt, hyperinflation, and widespread famine (Dollar

& Litvack, 1998) However, largely due to political and economic reforms in 1986 and the national government's commitment, Vietnam has made major progress over the past twenty years with economic development and poverty alleviation (V C Nguyen, Phung, & Daniel, 2015) Average economic growth in Vietnam over the decade to 2000 was 7.6 percent, making it one of the fastest growing countries worldwide as well as significantly improving the quality of life for most

of its people (Fritzen, 2002) The GDP growth rate for the period of 2001-2010 was on average more than 7% annually (GoV, 2011b) In later years, due to the impact of the global economic downturn, the GDP growth rate in Vietnam decreased to 5.42% in 2011-2013; and by 2014, the economy had recovered and started to grow again with growths of 5.98% in 2014 (GoV, 2015d), and 6.81% in 2017 (GoV, 2018)

Along with economic development, Vietnam has placed special attention on poverty reduction and social development; these efforts have brought remarkable results Seventy percent of people in the mid-1980s were living in poverty; however, the poverty rate plunged dramatically from 58% in 1993 to 37.4% in 1998 (World Bank, 2000), and the figures for the years 2002, 2006,

2008, and 2016 decreased incrementally, at 28.9%, 16%, 14.5%, and 9.8% respectively (The World Bank, 2018a; VAAS, 2011) Food poverty has also declined very strongly from 34.9% in 1993 to 6.7% in 2006 (World Bank, 2008), and to 5.7% in 2017 (The World Bank, 2018a)

Nevertheless, the achievements in economic development are always accompanied by great challenges In the period 2010-2015, Vietnam faced declining economic conditions, bad debts from commercial banks and ineffective operation of state-owned enterprises (GoV, 2015d) As a result, the poverty rate reduction slowed and a policy response was to depreciate the Vietnamese dong against with the US dollar (GoV, 2018) In addition, the poverty rate has differed between regions (Kang & Imai, 2012) For example, the poverty rate in the Southeastern, Red River Delta, and North-Eastern (NE) in 2015 was 1.5%, 7.1% and 22.7% respectively (GoV, 2015b) The northern mountainous areas have remained among the poorest areas in the country for decades The fight against poverty in the NE region remains a challenging task (GoV, 2018)

Moreover, although poverty has significantly reduced at the national level, the rates differ between ethnic groups in different areas (Dang, 2012; V C Nguyen, 2012) as well as the quality of

life and ownership of property in a broad sense (including access to land, basic social services and education) (VAAS, 2011) The biggest differences are seen between the Vietnamese Kinh ethnic (majority) group, whose poverty rates fell from 53.9% in 1993 to 4.5% in 2012, and for other ethnic minority groups, where the decline was from 86.4% to 20.5% over the same period (V C Nguyen, 2012) To accentuate the differences between ethnic majority and minority groups, the poverty gap between rich and poor is increasing (The World Bank, 2014) During 1997-98, the Gini coefficient, for instance, rose to 0.350, a 6% increase from 1992–93; and the coefficient of variation increases from 0.745 to 0.813 between the two periods (A Y C Liu, 2001) The Gini coefficient figure in 2010 was 0.393 (The World Bank, 2018b), and “Vietnam’s 210 super-rich earn more than enough in one year to lift 3.2 million people out of poverty and end extreme poverty in Vietnam” (Oxfarm, 2017) The North-Eastern region is mostly populated by ethnic minority groups and is dominated by sloping, rocky landscapes, thus making transport and farming difficult Added

to this, ethnic minorities mainly live in relatively inaccessible mountainous areas where there is a lack of basic conditions for living (fresh water, electricity, farming land, infrastructure); the opposite is true of the Vietnamese Kinh ethnic who tend to live in the central areas, which are more productive and flatter, with better conditions for living (VAAS, 2011) Low education levels impedes the majority of people accessing stable income from jobs in the non-agricultural sector (V S Nguyen, 2012) In addition, erosion and soil degradation in these areas make it difficult for ethnic minority people to cultivate any of high economic value tree species (V C Nguyen, 2012) These factors have always posed great challenges in overcoming poverty in this region (GoV, 2018)

For the North-Eastern Vietnamese, livelihoods have depended strongly on forest resources, where their contributions towards poverty alleviation vary according to ethnicity and landscape region (V C Nguyen et al., 2015) Hence, increasing the volume of forest resources in a sustainable way could be considered for the purpose of reducing poverty Using forest resources

to reduce poverty has attracted the attention of researchers worldwide, particularly given that the important roles of forest have been increasingly recognised since the late 1970s (The World Bank, 2018a) However, the natural forest area in Vietnam has been in decline (GoV, 2015b), with forest cover decreasing dramatically from 43% in 1943 to 27.2% in 1990 (Meyfroidt & Lambin, 2008; Rambaldi, Bugna, & Geiger, 2001) An average of 100,000 ha of forest vanished annually from 1980 to 1990 (GoV, 2007) Since the 1990s, the Vietnamese government has implemented policies and programs to reduce deforestation and accelerate reforestation The Vietnamese government views the Land Law of 1993 as a landmark for forestland allocation and facilitated

the 661 program, built on earlier reforestation projects starting from 1998, and is now the largest reforestation program in Vietnam Its stated goals not only included restoring five million hectares with 43% forest cover by 2010, but also to create job opportunities and increased income for people living in and around forests (GoV, 1998) In addition, based on the revised Law on Forest Protection and Development (GoV, 2004), the Government has established the legal basis for implementing a national program of payment for ecosystem services (PES) In 2008, following Decision No 380/QD-TTg the Prime Minister allowed a pilot policy to fund PES in Son La and Lam Dong provinces (GoV, 2008) In 2010, Decree No 99/2010 / ND-CP was issued to implement the policy to fund PES on a national scale from January 1, 2011 (GoV, 2010), and to enable Vietnam to become the first nation in Asia to have issued and implemented national PES policies (T B T Nguyen et al., 2011) Accordingly, those involved in reforestation and forest protection are able to receive money from forest product buyers PES has attracted significant international interest because it has the potential to not only enhance environmental protection and improve forestation, but to also improve the livelihoods of the farmers by remunerating people for their efforts in providing ecosystem services, such as preventing soil erosion and protecting watersheds (FAO, 2011; Sven Wunder, 2005)

In Vietnam, important questions remain unanswered: to what extent can forest resources help reduce poverty and what is the relationship between poverty alleviation and forest conservation? The overview given above makes it clear that poverty alleviation must always be implemented in parallel with natural resource conservation strategies To do so in forested systems requires forest management and conservation activities to be effective, and this is the product of a complex institutional development and planning processes that are reflected in policies and regulations (Sunderlin & Huynh, 2005) Moreover, in Vietnam, as in many developing countries with often remarkable programs for reforestation, forest protection, as well as improvement the livelihoods

of poor in non-urban areas, the degree to which those programs and potentialities for payments for ecosystem services can help poverty alleviation, sustainable forest management and to meet people's needs, requires more research This thesis sets out to address this knowledge gap Sustainable rural livelihood is the research domain in which this research occurs Here the roles of forest income and management, and policies can be examined In the next sections this domain, and these roles, will be briefly reviewed as they apply to Vietnam

1.3 Sustainable rural livelihood (SL)

Livelihood analysis is a people-centred approach: a combination of people’s capacity and their knowledge (UNDP & Wanmali, 1999) A livelihood includes capabilities, assets (stores, natural

resources, land, infrastructure) and activities required for a living; those capitals are effected by institutions and social relations (Lonn, Mizoue, Ota, Kajisa, & Yoshida, 2018; Vishwambhar et al., 2017) A livelihood is considered sustainable when: (i) it promotes the potential of the person, and

by doing this, people can produce and maintain their livelihoods; (ii) it must be able to confront and overcome ongoing pressures as well as sudden changes; (iii) it neither exploits nor damages the environment, or other livelihoods, in the present or in the future - in fact, it should promote harmony between them and bring the benefits to future generations (Chambers & Conway, 1992)

The sustainable-rural livelihood (SL) approach is an analytical process that aims to help the poor understand the status of the five capital sources they possess and to develop appropriate livelihood strategies (DFID, 1999; Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), 2006) Capital sources (often represented by a pentagon) include five capitals: human capital (knowledge, skills, health, age, gender); natural capital (natural resources, land area, forest area, water source, weather, season); financial capital (access to finance including cash, savings, gold, cattle, loans); physical capital (infrastructure, labor tools, machinery to help increase labor productivity); the fifth, social capital, is the social resource that people use to develop their livelihood, it is "glue" to connect members of society into one community The shape and size of the pentagons reflect a person’s access to the five capitals, and so each household, and each village will have a different pentagons (Brown, Nuberg, & Llewellyn, 2018); however, both households and villages can learn/share from each other to improve their capitals if the gereral conditions are nearly the same (DFID, 1999) The SL approach, in contrast to the individual approaches, includes participation of all stakeholders for international development and poverty reduction via a combination of agencies, government and stakeholders (Krantz, 2001) This aspect will bring to the internal community, as well as external supporters, the opportunity to adapt to natural conditions and to adapt to social changeand in doing so provide an improved outlook for themselves and for the next generation (Tao & Wall, 2009) Besides that, the SL focuses on analyzing the livelihood strategies of the poor and the impact of institutions on their livelihoods (Ashley & Carney, 1999), which means that the approach tries to incorporate all elements related to the development of household livelihoods, including the five capitals sources and policy context (Ashley & Carney, 1999) So the SL is not only used for describing the actual situation of households/villages, but also providing a background context to apply sustainable livelihoods strategies in the future (Serrat, 2008) Hence, when implementing development activities, the SL approach sets a benchmark for assessing whether

An analysis of sustainable rural livelihoods is a simple way to find out the livelihoods of people, especially poor people, and then find ways to make the livelihoods sustainable (Serrat, 2008) By using SL to describe the households/villages, it is possible to determine the main factors that affect the livelihoods in a village (Chambers & Conway, 1992; Quandt, 2018) However, livelihoods and assets of the poor are often affected by external factors (floods, cyclones, civil strife, seasonality, crop failure, pest and disease, etc.) which the poor have little or no control over, resulting in people's property being destroyed by these shocks (M Li et al., 2017) In addition, population increase, the degradation forest resources, rising consumer prices, job losses, and availability of food also greatly affect the livelihood strategies of poor (Y Liu, Huang, Wang, Luan,

& Ding, 2018) The issues mentioned above can be addressed by five key factors proposed by Scoones (1998): (i) increasing the number of working days; (ii) reducing poverty; (iii) improving well-being and capabilities; (iv) adapting livelihoods; and (v) ensuring natural resource-based sustainability These elements provide a comprehensive classification for the livelihood strategy of the poor, and they can be combined or modified to fit the specific characteristics of households or regions (Colombo, Romeo, Mattarolo, Barbieri, & Morazzo, 2018) Beside that, institutions, organizations and other factors such as history, policies, politics, demography, and sociality are analysed in combination with livelihood assets and strategies (Hassan, Yusof, & Abdullah, 2016)

By incorportating all these factors, SL provides a scope for problem analysis and for broadening the understanding of how to build on effective strategies to deal with livelihood crises, and the framework is oriented towards sustainability and adaptation (Quandt, 2018) In this project, SL provides a background framework for the context of the villages/households, to gain anoverall picture of the villages/households, the way forests are actually managed, and the relative influence of the five capitals

Collective action, as a typical example of social capital, makes a significant contribution to buidling livelihood strategies for the poor (Gari, Newton, Icely, & Delgado-Serrano, 2017), by setting out to achieve common goals (bringing benefits to villagers or community members) (Rahman, Hickey, & Sarker, 2012) The effectiveness of collective action in common-pool resource management depends on internal and external characteristics of the community, such as the kind of resource under consideration, availability of resources, the management of technology, the behavior of the members, and the existing institutions (Girma & Beyene, 2015) Common-pool resources can be managed by local/national authorities, organizations, individuals, or co-management via decentralization, and each management form has its advantages and disadvantages (Girma & Beyene, 2015) In some cases, state intervention affects the livelihoods of the people and the community, for example by imposing institutions that do not fit the lived experiences or by

removing traditional cultural values (Rahman et al., 2012) Decentralization to organizations and individuals can, in some places, degrade resources because the new forest owners only focus on exploitation activities without regard to its perpetual availability (Stapp, Lilieholm, Upadhaya, & Johnson, 2015) In contrast, co-management is the solution considered to be optimal for conserving resources (Anup, Manandhar, Paudel, & Ghimire, 2018; Ward, Stringer, & Holmes, 2018) because it combines state regulations with socio-economic characteristics of each locality based on the five actual capitals In doing so strengths are promoted and weaknesses are minimized (Mukherjee, Ray, & Bhattacharya, 2017)

According to Scoones (1998), a good livelihood strategy is to increase income, to improve being, to reduce vulnerability, to improve food security and to sustainably use natural resources However, the balance between livelihood outcomes, with the poor, and resource conservation is difficult because poor households tend to over exploit forest resources to increase their income (Rawlins & Westby, 2013) In this case, policies and laws have a significant influence on the livelihood strategies of the poor, by stipulating the rights and the obligations that households need to follow (Carney, 2003) This will be discussed in the next section

well-1.4 Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) and Policies

According to N N Li and Li (2011), natural resources, including forest resources, are considered as property Bromley (1992) defines property as “a claim to a benefit (income) stream, and a property right is a claim to a benefit stream that some higher body – usually the state – will agree

to protect through the assignment of duty to others who may covet, or somehow interfere with, the benefit stream” Since forest resources become property, forms of protection become necessary (Lestari, Kotani, & Kakinaka, 2015)

Sustainable forest management is the management of forests based on the principles of sustainable development where economy, ecology and sociality are balanced (Wolfslehner & Vacik, 2008) Once a state of balance is achieved, benefits for both the people (villagers) and the managers (state, organizations) should flow (Álvarez-Miranda, Garcia-Gonzalo, Ulloa-Fierro, Weintraub, & Barreiro, 2018) The poor/villagers can earn higher incomes in sustainable ways, ecology diversity benefits, and societies can become wealthier, while managers can secure the natural resources (Lestari et al., 2015) The government, as a manager, promulgates laws or strategies to eliminate negative elements, with people implementing resource management based on laws (Borges et al., 2014) However, sustainable development for forests must include

ecological and social elements (Mukete et al., 2018; Natcher, Kalagnanam, Rawal, Johnston, & Mamun, 2018)

Forest owners can play a significant role as forest guardians and in so doing maintain sustainable forest development over time; decentralization is a state-based mechanism to allow this to occur

at a relevant local level (Chinangwa, Pullin, & Hockley, 2017) Decentralization sets up a formal, collaborative arrangement between the state and local communities to work together to establish the rights and responsibilities for managing forest resources (N J Cook, Wright, & Andersson, 2017) Recent studies have emphasized that conservation programs, to be effective or not, must consider the needs, aspirations and consensus of villagers and stakeholders (Dörre, 2015; Hashiguchi, Pulhin, Dizon, & Camacho, 2016; Rutt et al., 2015; Santopuoli, Ferranti, & Marchetti, 2016) The state is in the position to empower organizations, communities and people to manage resources as their own, and in a manner the state deems to be appropriate (Ariansen, 1998; Chinangwa et al., 2017)

Decentralization is prominent in developing countries, for example the empowerment program for forest management communities in Nepal and India (Nagendra & Gokhale, 2008) It has been observed that it is a useful approach where common resources areprone to exploitation and degradation by human activities (Ostrom, 1990) In addition to decentralization, there may also be links between different owners to jointly manage the resources, known as natural resource co-management (Ostrom, 2000) Decentralization and co-management are both participatory by nature The literature shows that participatory forest management is the optimal way to achieve the multiple goals of forest conservation, conservation of biodiversity, and socio-economic benefits for communities and people living in and around the forest (Larson, Barry, Dahal, & Colfer, 2010; Mogoi, Obonyo, Ongugo, Oeba, & Mwangi, 2012) The theoretical basis is that once people gain benefit from a forest conservation program, forests areas will be better protected (Eunju Lee & Krasny, 2017)

Decentralization of resource management is ultimately about the way power and rights are transferred, and the type of rights that are transferred Schlager and Ostrom (1992) point to the

five de facto and de jure rights, namely the right to access, the right to withdraw, the right to

manage, the right to exclude, and the right to alienate as central to the output or accountability

on which the decentralization of the forest management depends Moreover, in 1990, Ostrom introduced eight principles for gauging the nature of long enduring institutions for natural resource management (NRM), including well-defined boundaries, congruence between appropriation and provision rules and local conditions, collective-choice arrangements, monitoring, graduated sanctions, conflict-resolution mechanisms, minimum recognition of rights,

and nested enterprises These design principles provide us with a benchmark for determining the sustainability of current forest land allocation (FLA) policies and practices, and the degree to which these policies and practices conform to theoretical and global standards for the decentralized and self-organized management of NRM Other scholars have shown that the organizational structure of government agencies from the state to the local level (village level) also plays an important role in the implementation of policies, and hence can impose an impact

on the livelihoods of the poor (Maryudi et al., 2012)

Significant studies worldwide show that sustainable forest management forms may change because the socio-economic conditions in each area are different, and therefore, policy makers must also pay attention to this context (León, Uberhuaga, Benavides, & Andersson, 2012; Lund et al., 2015; Luo, Liu, Zhang, & Dong, 2015; S., Teri, Volker, & Jeremy, 2017; Thorkil & Anders, 2011)

1.5 Total economic forest value (TEV)

Forests provide various economic advantages, including both use and non-use values (Dlamini, 2012), and the benefits can be divided into different groups such as direct use, indirect use, option and existence (Pearce, 2001; SCBD, 2001) Discount cash flow analysis (Faustmann, 1849) was an early solution to evaluate the value of a forest Researchers worldwide have now developed the theory and methodology to understand and evaluate the full value of ecosystem services (Bebbington, Brown, & Frame, 2007; Parks & Gowdy, 2013; Wegner & Pascual, 2011) Market and non-market value methods have been developed to estimate the total economic value (Kenter et al., 2015) Each method has its advantages and disadvantages Market-oriented mechanisms exclude some of these values, essentially meaning that the interests of non-market values of the environment are often neglected (SCBD, 2001) To overcome this, researchers have developed various methods to try estimate the total economic value of forests, including non-market benefits and markets for a more comprehensive assessment (Fiquepron, Garcia, & Stenger, 2013; Jala & Nandagiri, 2015; Limaei, Ghesmati, Rashidi, & Yamini, 2014; Navrud &

Pruckner, 1997; Riera et al., 2012; Sander & Haight, 2012; Vulentic et al., 2009)

Use values are related to direct, indirect or future use of natural resources Direct use value includes goods and services that provide for human well-being such as timber, fuel, food, and medicine, as well as education and culture (Mavsar et al., 2008) Direct use values of forest activities can be commercial or non-commercial (Croitoru, Tounsi, Aloui, & Jebari, 2012) The commercial value of timber production are expressed in both domestic and international contexts (Accastello, Blanc, Mosso, & Brun, 2018) On the other hand, direct use values of non-commercial

techniques to estimate direct use value of forest in almost cases is based on market prices (Bishop, 1998; Pearce, 2001)

Indirect use values are important (Carrasco, Nghiem, Sunderland, & Koh, 2014) and they relate to ecological functions of forests Some forests can be relied upon to control sedimentation and flood damage, and thereby reduce these effects on agricultural production, fishing, water supply and other economic activities (Kwayu, Paavola, & Sallu, 2017) Other forest functions are involved

in microclimate regulation, and as stores of carbon (in trees), and therefore involved in the reduction of “greenhouse” gases related global warming (Fearnside, 2012; Ivan, Falup, Mircea, Ionel, & Vasilescu, 2015) Indirect use values can be estimated by market prices or methods of production function (Parajuli, Lamichhane, & Joshi, 2015)

Option value is the value of having the option of using direct, or indirect, use of the forest in the future Non-use value can be broadly defined into two type: bequest value, the value of forests that people desire to leave for future generations; and existence value, the intrinsic value of a forest ecosystem, including biodiversity (Dlamini, 2012) Option values and non-use values are known as “passive values”

Based on these descriptions of the economic value of forests, and actual conditions in Vietnam, TEV was applied in the research sites as detailed in Table 1-1 below:

Table 1-1: Types of forest values and valuation techniques showing which types of forest values

relevant to thesis

Valuation techniques

Physical indicators

Monetary indicators

Relevant to the thesis

1 Direct use value

Wood sold by the

administration

Market price Quantity (m3) Economic price Yes

Collected wood Market price Quantity (m3) Economic price Yes

Market price of substitute goods

Price of charcoal Yes

Yes

Forage Market price Quantity (FU) Economic price Yes

Market price of substitute goods

Prices of substitute products (hay, barley)

Yes

Hunting Market price Number of

animals

Economic price of hunted animals

2 Indirect use value

Watershed

protection

Method of production function

Quantity of sediments avoided in dams

Opportunity cost of water

Yes

Area of agricultural land protected

Avoided losses of agricultural land

Carbon price in the international market

As a component of overall household income, forest incomes can be important surrogates for the assessment of the condition of forests, the value of forests, the impact of forest policies, the forest management forms used by the households, as well as the balance between different land use purposes (Wollenberg, 2000) Forest incomes are an important supplement to household income and play an important role in household livelihoods by improving food security and reducing vulnerability (Sven Wunder, Noack, & Angelsen, 2018) The type and amount of forest income varies by household characteristics such as gender, age, and composition of households (Parajuli et al., 2015) Although the importance of forest incomes is increasingly recognised, especially for poor rural households (Angelsen et al., 2014b), the actual contributions of forest incomes have remained largely independent of any poverty reduction strategies for many

Kobugabe Berg, 2004); for example forest products like timber/poles might be collected illegally, and might not be traded in formal markets (Cavendish, 2000)

Among the resources from the forest, timber is always considered the most important, with the greatest value for human livelihood (The World Bank, 2001) However, since the 1980s, non-timber forest products (NTFPs) have received significant interest in programs related to forest management and protection, mainly because forest resources are being rapidly destroyed (Lowore, Meaton, & Wood, 2018) According to Mugido and Shackleton (2018), in the South Africa the total value of NTFPs is greater than the total value of timber Non-timber forest products provide not only economic value (Wahlén, 2017), but also other values such as contributions to culture, recreation, local cultural preservation, and forest biodiversity support (Leßmeister et al., 2018) For the poor, NTFPs are mainly sought for domestic consumption rather than for commercial purposes, and NTFPs are therefore considered as "safety nets" to fill the gaps where agricultural products are lacking (Vogt et al., 2016) However, overexploitation without regard to conservation has led to a rapidly degraded NTFP resource (Leßmeister et al., 2018; Seymour & Busch, 2016)

As applied to NTFPs, the proposition of “conservation by commercialization”, argued that the volume of NTFPs is increased simultaneously with the income gained from NTFPs if harvesting and conservation strategies are combined harmoniously (Evans, 1993) The idea NTFPs can help achieve both the desired development and conservation goals has led conservation and development organizations to promote NTFP-based livelihood development and conservation programs with funding from different donor agencies in areas worldwide, but particularly in the tropics (Nepstad

& Schwartzman, 1992) In accordance with these programs, some studies have also shown that income from NTFPs could contribute to rural livelihood development (Carvalho Ribeiro et al., 2018; Tesfaye et al., 2010), and that harvesting NTFPs could be ecologically less destructive than timber extraction (Seymour & Busch, 2016) In keeping with these ideas, Swamy, Drazen, Johnson, and Bukoski (2018) argued that identifying new products and developing markets for NTFPs would make tropical forests more valuable and thus help to reduce deforestation However, other studies have shown that NTFP development programs in developing countries have failed because those programs did not show due consideration to socio-economic conditions and actual national policies This criticism has been described for 61 case studies in Asia (Kusters & Belcher, 2004), in Africa (Sunderland, Ndoye, & Harrison, 2004), in Latin America (Alexiades & Shanley, 2004), and in Bolivia and Mexico (Marshall, Schreckenberg, & Newton, 2006) In order to ensure sustainable development of NTFPs, factors such as socio-economic conditions, land-use rights, forest-use rights, people's awareness, and collective action are all important consideration (Marshall et al.,

2006) Moreover, policies related to rural development programs must also pay attention to the social classes andeconomic wealth groups in the same places/villages because the dependence of different household economic groups on the forest resources varies (Adam & Eltayeb, 2016)

1.6 Aim

The overall aim of the thesis is to examine the way the policy context in Vietnam has influenced both a) household livelihood strategies for poor people in situations where access to forests is important to supplement income, and b) the nature of forest management

The study builds on a foundation of sustainable rural livelihood (SL), total economic forest values (TEV), and sustainable forest management (SFM) concepts The SL is mainly based on five capitals

to describe the actual situation of villages or households, especially the livelihood of the poor people (DFID, 1999); but it lacks an explicit attention to both the marketable aspects of forest resources and the management of forest resources The TEV can describe the forest valuation based on the economic aspects, but does not deal with household behaviour with respect to those values, nor does it give instruction on forest management (Merlo & Croitoru, 2005) And SFM is focused on how to manage forest resources, again without being attentive to a household economic analysis (Gadow, 2001; Hardi & Zdan, 1997) Together, however, these concepts are used in this study to tackle the overall aim (Figure 1-1)

Sustainable

livelihoods

approach (SL)

Sustainable forest management approach (SFM)

Total economic forest values approach (TEV)

Sustainable use of forest resources and improved livelihoods

1.7 Thesis structure

The thesis is divided into seven chapters; Chapter 1 is this introduction Chapter 2 gives the methodological approach outlining the research design and the mixed methods considered useful for complicated questions or a complex synthesis

Using data from in-depth interviews and secondary data sources, the implementation of decentralization in forest resources is investigated for NE Vietnam in Chapter 3 in order to determine whether forest-related policies have, or could, influence household strategies The types of power and the rights that are transferred according to these polices, and the extent to which different levels of the political scale from province to household share common understandings of the processes of forest land allocation, are also considered The findings in this chapter are set against Ostrom’s design principles for long-enduring institutions in natural resource management

Chapter 4 outlines the actual forest management forms in each of two provinces, then compares them to find out which forest management forms are effective and sustainable according to benchmarks of the SL and SFM literature Information for five capitals of villages and households were collected and analyzed in combination with forest-policies contexts Data from in-depth interviews, group discussions, and participatory observations were to be used to explain the form

of forest management and to illustrate the influence of forest-related policies on actual forest management form in each province

Chapter 5 then focusses on rural subsistence incomes in forest regions For the same two provinces we examined the contribution of forest resources to total household income for subsistence farmers in North-Eastern Vietnam according to household wealth groups, and sought

to determine how the season cycle for income affects patterns of forest exploitation, and to make recommendations regarding times when households/villages most need support

Payment for Forest Environmental Services (PES) is discussed in Chapter 6 The chapter presents how PES scheme was applied in Bac Kan province, and the role of PES in villagers’ financial circumstances, and the role it plays in forest management

Finally, the linkage between decentralization, forest management, and household income; and to what extent forest income can help poverty alleviation were examined in Chapter 7

This thesis was written so that Chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6 could be stand-alone pieces of work to be published discretely as a series of related papers While I have endeavoured to avoid it, a certain amount of repetition of literature and methodology is found in these chapters

Chapter 2: Methodology

2.1 Research context

This is a comparative study of two provinces in the Northeast of Vietnam: Bac Kan (a province where PES has implemented in places) and Thai Nguyen province (where PES has not been implemented) Bac Kan and Thai Nguyen are located in the same geographical region and have contiguous administrative boundaries (Figure 2-1), consequently some of their basic conditions are relatively homogeneous In fact, formerly they were a single province, called Bac Thai Under the Resolution of the 10th session of the IX National Assembly, 6 November 1996, and effective from 1/1/1997, Bac Thai province was divided in to Thai Nguyen and Bac Kan provinces

Thai Nguyen (with geographical coordinates 21020’ N to 220 03’ N latitude and 105052’ E to

106014’ E longitude) is regarded as the cultural, political, and economic centre of the northern mountainous areas of Vietnam It has a total land area of 356,282 ha of which forest land accounts for 50.9% Of the forest areas, 129,247 ha is allocated to households and other organizations to manage (100,141 ha households, and organizations 29,106 ha) (Thai Nguyen People's Committee, 2017a) The remaining areas are natural forest or protected areas Than Sa-Phuong Hoang Natural Reserve was established by People’s Committee of Thai Nguyen Province

in 1999 (Decision No 3890/QD-BU dated 07/12/1999) with a total area of 18,858.9ha

Bac Kan is located at latitude and longitude of 22009′41″N 105049′50″E with eight administrative units (7 districts, 1 city) The total land area is 485,996 ha of which forest land comprises 370,792ha (accounting for 76.29% of the provincial area) Of these forest areas, 342,755 ha is allocated to households and other organizations to manage (216,549.3 ha for households and 126,205.7 ha for organizations) The remaining areas are natural forest or protected areas, with natural forest accounts for 80% making it the province with the largest amount of natural forest area in NE Vietnam (Bac Kan People's Committee, 2018) Ba Be National Park was established by Government of Vietnam in 1992 (Decision No 83/TTg dated 10/11/1992) with a total area of 7,610 hectares, expanded to 10,048 ha in 2004 (Decision No 2776/QD-UB dated 26/11/2004 of the People's Committee of Bac Kan province)

- Thai Nguyen: Ban Chuong, Na Ca, and Phu Coc villages belonging to the Sang Moc commune, Vo Nhai district (Figure 2-2)

- Bac Kan: Na Thau (Dong Phuc commune), Leo Keo (Quang Khe commune), and Duong (Hoang Tri commune), belonging to the Ba Be district (Figure 2-3)

Figure 2-1: Provinces and regions of Vietnam, showing more detail for the north, and the

provinces of interest for this thesis

Study provinces

Figure 2-2: Than Sa-Phuong Hoang Natural Reserve and three villages of interest for the thesis

The yellow line shows the border of Than Sa-Phuong Hoang Natural Reserve, and three yellow dots showing where the three villages are located

Vo Nhai (one of nine districts in Thai Nguyen) and Ba Be (one of eight districts in Bac Kan) were selected for investigation Vo Nhai has a forest cover of 65%, the largest forest area in Thai Nguyen province The area includes the Than Sa-Phuong Hoang Natural Reserve (Thai Nguyen Statistics Office, 2016) This is very similar to the situation found in Ba Be district, which has the largest forest area for the Bac Kan province (forest cover of 64%) and includes the Ba Be National Park (Bac Kan Statistics Office, 2016)

The research investigated Sang Moc commune (one of 15 communes in the Vo Nhai district), along with Quang Khe, Dong Phuc, and Hoang Tri communes (three of 16 communes in Ba Be) The communes have comparable natural conditions: Sang Moc commune is located in the Than Sa-Phuong Hoang Natural Reserve; while Quang Khe, Dong Phuc, and Hoang Tri communes belong to the Ba Be National Park In addition, the four communes are all listed in Decision 204/QĐ-TTg dated February 01, 2016, which means that they face extreme socio-economic hardship and are located in remote areas; hence, their basic socio-economic conditions are likely

to be similar (GoV, 2016)

Accordingly, those villages in the Thai Nguyen are in theThan Sa-Phuong Hoang Natural Reserve, and those villages in the Bac Kan are located in the Ba Be National Park The villages are comparable for their environmental settings, socio-economic conditions, and ethnicity All of them are located in buffer-zone areas of a nature reserve or a national park In addition, five villages are entirely (100%) Tay ethnic residents In the sixth village, Na Thau, one of 44 households is Dao ethnic, the rest are Tay As a result, the lifestyles, cultures, and livelihood strategies of households in the villages are relatively homogenous Forest categories are present

in the areas are being managed by villagers, namely, public forest (protection forest), and private forest (production forest) However, the amount of forest area in each category differs between the villages and provinces as shown in the Table 2-1 below

Table 2-1: Forest area being managed by households in the research areas by village and average

for each province

(protection forest)

Private forest (production forest)

Total forest area managed

Houses are scattered on hillsides or along sloping roads, they differ in size and styles: most are made from wood, some of the houses of the wealthier villagers are brick The common point of the households is often an adjacent orchard with some common species, such as banana, jackfruit, mango, papaya, longan, or litchi and a small vegetable garden, supplying vegetables for the family Surrounding the houses are the forests of the three of forest categories (special-use forest, production forest, and protection forest) All households have a production forest, sometimes called a private forest, an area where the state has been granted a Land Certificate and the households has the right to carry out plantation activities

The lifestyles of the people includes a bold traditional culture For the people in the villages, the main language is Tay The younger generation can write and communicate well in Vietnamese as Vietnamese is the official language used in school, however when they at home, the language ofTay is used Most elderly people (older than 70 years) cannot communicate in Vietnamese Some people can listen to and understand Vietnamese, but are either unable to speak it or can

There are many different careers: official, orchardist, collector, worker, and merchant, however most people work as farmers Young and healthy people often go out of the village to work as hired laborers to make more money Old people, young children and women are often at home doing housework and tending livestock Evenings and weekends are often the happiest time because people come home from work, sit around and talk with each other Most people use their free time to earn extra income: collecting forest products or fishing Forest incomes often account for a large portion of total household incomes, as apart from agricultural and livestock production, forest products are the year-round source of income for the households

Communities are highly valued Villagers tend to help neighbours on special occasions, such as funerals and weddings During these days, almost all the household's production activities are stopped, and everyone (including the elderly and young children) help Menperform physical work like cutting wood and carrying heavy things Women cook and clean Older, more experienced, people sit together and talk and lead people to work Children play together or help women do light work

2.2 Research design

Using household sample surveys in order to describe social phenomena has become a key commonly used approach as they are flexible methods of data collection (United Nations, 2005) Two methods were applied in this research, a quantitative and qualitative approach (see Figure 2-4) The study adopts a type of mixed method, involving simultaneous data collection in both numeric information (e.g., with survey instruments) as well as text information (e.g., with open-ended interviews (Cresswell, 2003)), in order to disentangle the research problem

Mixed methods are particularly useful for complicated questions or complex synthesis For instance, using questionnaires to collect information in quantitative research helps to generalize results, whereas qualitative approach by using open-ended interview, case studies, and other qualitative data-collection methods help collect in-depth and locally applicable details and information; the two methods complement each other (Kar, 2010)

Quantitative data was collected through questionnaires, and qualitative data was gathered by depth key informant interviews, village meetings, and personal field observation In addition, Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) approaches (AFN, 2002; Freudenberger, 2002; Helvetas Vietnam, 2003; IFAD, 2002) were adapted in the field to collect data in each village

in-2.3 Data collection

2.3.1 Secondary data collection

Secondary data were collected at international, national and regional levels; this included

Research questions

Research design (Mixed method research)

Quantitative

approach

(Using questionnaire)

Qualitative approach (Interview and RRA, PRA)

Pilot interview administered Semi-structure interview

Interview administered Semi-structure interview

Draft the questionnaire

Pilot questions

Apply questionnaire

Analyse to find out

the total income and

Analyse to find out the ways of village in forest management and policies

Synthesis

Figure 2-4: Mixed method approach used in this study

English and Vietnamese In addition, information about forest condition in the research locations was also collected While secondary data at international level were collected by searching publications on the internet and in Australian university libraries, the national and regional level data were collected from government offices at central and local levels, including local university libraries, institutes, organizations, publications, the Thai Nguyen and Bac Kan General Statistical Offices, Forestry Office, the Land Management Unit of the districts and communes, and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development

2.3.2 Primary data collection

2.3.2.1 In-depth interviews

Semi-structured interviews were carried out with key informants on issues such as the policies related to forestry, especially policy experiences in forest management, PES, and poverty alleviation

At each of the provincial level, two persons working in the fields of forest and agriculture were selected for interview according to the position they held in the Department of Agricultural and Rural Development and relevant Forestry Offices

At each of the local district, commune, and village levels, at least two people were interviewed Persons in each level were selected according to their perceived position to describe the actual situation of the household’s income and the way forest resources are managed

Interviewees were selected using the following steps First, a “Letter of Recommendation” jointly from Edith Cowan University (where the PhD student has candidature) and the Thai Nguyen University of Agriculture and Forestry (ordinary workplace of the PhD candidate) was sent to Thai Nguyen Province People’s Committee and Bac Kan Province People’s Committee to announce the purpose, time, and number of people to be involved in the survey Second, a “Letter of Recommendation” with the same content was sent to the Vo Nhai and Ba Be districts, as well as communes and villages, where the interviews were to be performed Next, based on a list of people working in different positions in department/office/commune Statistical Yearbook 2015, key people were selected and received an invitation and an information letter Finally, a direct call from the chief investigator was used to set-up the time and place for an interview

2.3.2.2 Questionnaires

Three questionnaires (Annual household survey; Quarterly household surveys; and Village survey)

were used based on the Poverty Environment Network (PEN) prototype household questionnaires

(CIFOR, 2008); they were adapted to collect appropriate information for the specifics of this project The PEN prototype household questionnaire aims to collect high quality, and comparable, data from a variety of tropical and subtropical forest settings to study forest-poverty interactions (CIFOR, 2007) In addition, PEN provides a general method able to generate basic empirical data

on forest-poverty relationships The questionnaires were modified and pre-tested accordingly The main modfications to the PEN questionnaires included:

a) removing some items that were regarded as redundant to the study;

b) by changing the response structure of some of the questions (from rank answers to Likert Scale answers);

c) adding a community capacity section to the annual survey;

d) by changing the way information related to total income/expenditure of household in the last 12 months (from Jan to Dec) was collected by adding three new columns (unit, quantity, and price for products)

Desired sample sizes for the survey were computed by applying Yamane's formula Techniques (Yamane, 1967),

Where: - number of samples

– size of population (total number of households in the village) – margin of error

In this project, a confidence level (95%) and a confidence interval (+/-5%) were the most commonly used margins of error In addition, a 10 percent attrition (drop out) rate was added to the sample size of the survey due to the length of the survey period, being nearly two years This aimed to allow for some changes in households, such as the head of household being absent for a long period (holiday, sick in the hospital), moving to other place or dying, or no longer wanting to

be interviewed The total numbers of households surveyed in each village are shown in Table 2-2

Table 2-2: Number of households surveyed in the survey areas

District/Province Village

Total number of households in the village

Sample size of household surveyed (including 10% attrition/drop out)

2.3.2.3 Participatory observation and photos

Participatory observation and photographs were conducted at the village level when using RRA,

and PRA tools (focus group) for primary data selection

Observation focused on natural resources, forest situation, markets, infrastructure, agricultural productions, forest productions, livestock sector productions, fishing and aquaculture production, handicraft and other forms of productivity Information was recorded in a notebook

Photographs were taken during group discussion processes

The number of tool assessments and expected outputs are shown in Table 2-3

Table 2-3: Other rural appraisal tools used for primary data selection

1 Participatory

mapping

- Description of natural resources in the locality and identification of the location of forest, as well as the places that people can collect forest products to make money

- Description of the markets where people can sell forest products and highlight the relationships between villages, especially on forest management issues

2 Transect walk - Identification of the food security and natural resources of the village

- Photos of natural resources, forest situation, markets, and infrastructure

- Identification of patterns of labour and employment

- Photographs about agricultural productions, forest productions, livestock sector productions, fishing and aquaculture productions, handicraft and other productions

- Identification of the role of organizations in local decision making, the role

of external forces on the communities, and decision-making processes

- Identification of the relationship with other villages, sharing of food and other resources as well as conflicts and conflicts resolution mechanisms

7 Ranking - Find out the priority activities in the future of the village

8 Problem/solution

tree

- Assessment of issues and solutions in forest management aspect as well as sustainable livelihood of the households in the village

Source: adapted from The World Bank (1996)

Progress for the fieldwork followed these steps First, four field enumerators were recruited and trained and a pilot phase was conducted over a period of two weeks where each of the surveys were tested and refined Second, the village survey, RRA, and PRA approach were conducted to collect general information for each village By doing this, researchers could get an overall picture

of each village and household, to make subsequent steps easier Next, the annual household survey was performed to collect household income and consumption for the calendar year 2015,

were conducted following each quarter/season in the calendar year 2016 (quarterly surveys numbered Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 from the beginning of the year) In-depth interviews at province, district, commune, and village level were combined with quarterly survey Q2 to ask about policy issues related to forestry, forest management, forest decentralization, PES, and poverty alleviation, etc The contents, time and responsibilities in the survey are detailed in Table 2-4 Prior to conducting this study, all interviewers were appropriately trained and familiarized with the objectives of the study, the contents of survey, the methods for collecting information, how the interviewer should introduce themselves before the survey, and the voluntary nature of an interviewee’s participation in surveys A consent form for each interviewee was used Consent was of particular importance because personal and household information on income and activities were requested During the survey time, the information was gathered carefully in the questionnaire Afterwards, copies of all information collected was kept securely and scheduled to

be destroyed after the study is completed Each interviewee was remunerated at an appropriate level to compensate for their time given to the study