Land Use After Forestland Allocation and the Potential for Farm Forestry in a Mountainous Region of Northeast Vietnam

Abstract

As a response to serious deforestation in Vietnam, the forestland allocation (FLA) policy was introduced in the 1990s. The process still continues, having allocated 80% of the forestland to various management entities, among which individual households are the most important one for production forests. While previous studies focusing on local livelihoods reveal negative impacts of the FLA, particularly in the initial stage, studies on forest cover change as well as government statistics indicate positive changes in the longer term. We focused on micro-scale land use change after the FLA, and selected two upland villages with different accessibility in the Northeast region of Vietnam. Though the FLA was initiated in 1995 in both villages, the government reforestation program first reached Village G with paved road, and they did second planting. However, forestland recipients in Village A, with no paved road, also planted timber species as soon as the program was introduced. Though the mean allocated areas in Village A was larger than that of Village G, the mean of tree plantation areas was comparable, 1.39 ha (SE = 1.09) in Village A and 1.38 ha (SE = 1.01) in Village G. These results suggest that government support is a determinant of the timing and area of tree planting activities. After the FLA, one of the next policy challenges is how to make small-scale farm forestry financially independent.