Abstract
Vietnam’s forests have experienced a notable transformation over the past 20 years from net deforestation to reforestation and expanding forests. Continued reforestation that aims to achieve further economic and environmental benefits remains a national priority and strategy. We explore the current status of plantation forests and highlight possible means to facilitate their expansion in the uplands of Vietnam. We employ mixed method triangulation to empirically explore plantation forests and their economic role in household livelihood, to quantify trade-offs between plantation forests and shifting cultivation, and to assess the constraints on plantation forest expansion in Nghe An province, north-central Vietnam. Results show that forest in the study area expanded by 406,000 ha (71.1%) between 1990 and 2016. Plantation forests increased by nearly 500% (from 32,000 ha to 190,000 ha), while natural forests expanded by 48.1% (from 538,000 ha to 797,000 ha). Plantation forests contributed an average of 35.1 percent of total household income in wealthier households and 27.9 percent of income in poor households. Switching from shifting cultivation to plantation forests would increase total household income and average carbon stock but decrease food provision. Total Economic Value would be higher for plantation forest scenarios if increased carbon stocks in plantations can be monetized. This carbon income might drive conversion of shifting cultivation to plantation forests. Constraints on further expansion of plantation forest are low external cooperation, education, market stability, and agroforestry extension services. Our empirical results inform national plantation forest development, sustainable upland livelihood development, and climate change mitigation programs to ultimately facilitate forest transition and improve the resilience and sustainability of socio-ecological systems.
Highlights
There is a need to reverse deforestation and increase the area of forests to meet SustainableDevelopment Goals (SDGs) such as economic growth, poverty reduction, and global environmental improvement [1,2,3,4,5,6]
We examined the size of plantation forests in Nghe An between 1990 and 2016 to answer this research results of household livelihood studies in relation to plantation forests to answer this research question
It is no surprise that forestland is an important part of natural capital of household livelihood, and this is consistent with the finding that high forest-based income dependence is strongly correlated with larger forestlands
Summary
There is a need to reverse deforestation and increase the area of forests to meet SustainableDevelopment Goals (SDGs) such as economic growth, poverty reduction, and global environmental improvement [1,2,3,4,5,6]. A better understanding of forest expansion solutions is a key requirement for designing proper forest-based climate solutions and sustainable rural development strategies. Most forest planters are still poor, and they are not able to realize additional values such as carbon values from plantation forests. They face several (financial and land) constraints that prevent them from increasing income from agroforestry practices [11,12]. Even in the same upland area, due to several reasons such as market access, topography or other constraints, plantation forests have developed unevenly between regions. The area of forests planted in the northeast was much larger than that in the northwest during 1999–2013 [10]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
