Forestland and rural household livelihoods in the North Central Provinces, Vietnam

Abstract

This paper examines the effects of forestland on household income, poverty and inequality among households in Vietnam’s poorest rural districts, the North Central Provinces. Randomly selected on the basis of their access to forest resources, 3200 households were interviewed. These people are extremely poor, with 54% living below the poverty line. Forest income constitutes about 17% of their total income; only wage income (37%) ranks higher. Such income is comprised mainly of non-timber forest plants (77%), followed by timber products (18%). However, there is a large gap in forest income between the poor and non-poor. The amount of forest income derived by non-poor households was nearly six times as much as that earned by poor households. Our micro-econometric analysis indicates that gaining access to more forestland would increase household per capita income and reduce the incidence and intensity of poverty, even after controlling for all other variables in the model. In addition, we find that forest income was the second largest contributor to overall income inequality and had a large marginal effect on it among local households. A policy implication here is that increasing the access of the poor to forest resources and improving their efficiency in forest management could have a substantial effect on income, poverty and inequality in the study area.