Abstract
The Afforestation and Perennial Tree Plantation Project were implemented in several mountainous areas in Dien Bien province, Vietnam, for many purposes such as providing agricultural products, increasing incomes for the people in the projected areas, and reducing shifting cultivation. Based on these reasons, the central and local governments implemented several policies and subsidies for the growers, including rice subsidies for ethnic minorities who planted forests to replace shifting cultivation; investment support for planting protective forests and special-use forests; and providing seedlings. This article aimed to provide a clear view of the supporting policies in the Afforestation and Perennial Crops Project and its effects on the local people’s livelihoods in Dien Bien province of Vietnam. By analyzing the types of the capital of the livelihood assets (human capital, natural capital, financial capital, physical capital, and social capital), indicators of each capital type were chosen and scored in the context of achieving sustainable livelihoods. The results identified that the government has issued several policies to help the investors and farmers involved in this project. However, there were some concerns about the policies in practice, for example, the low percentage of dividend sharing for farmers, unclear land use rights, and inadequate applications of the policies in reality. In evaluating the livelihood assets, significant differences were found in the sustainable livelihood index gained between the rubber-based and non-rubber-based groups.
Highlights
Over the last 50 years, reforesting the so-called ‘‘barren land’’ has become a growing concern among policy-makers in many areas of theTran Trong Phuong et al (2021)world (Quang et al, 2015; Trædal, 2018)
Ziegler et al (2009) and Clement (2008) reported that more than 500,000ha of rubber may have been planted in the uplands of Thailand, China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar
This trend in mainland Southeast Asia shows that rubber plantations are expanding rapidly in China, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Myanmar, where rubber trees are not historically found (Li & Fox, 2012)
Summary
Over the last 50 years, reforesting the so-called ‘‘barren land’’ has become a growing concern among policy-makers in many areas of theTran Trong Phuong et al (2021)world (Quang et al, 2015; Trædal, 2018). In Asia, the governments of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, China, and Vietnam have projected and carried out similar forestland policies, including settlement programs, land classification, devolution of forest management, and reforestation schemes (rubber and acacia) (Simelton et al, 2017). Rubber is one of the foremost plants in the whole region, global expansion of commercial agricultural products is leading to the conversion of traditional subsistence agricultural and occupied non-agricultural lands to commercialagricultural purposes. This trend in mainland Southeast Asia shows that rubber plantations are expanding rapidly in China, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Myanmar, where rubber trees are not historically found (Li & Fox, 2012). Together with the expansion of rubber and acacia in Vietnam, many of the policies affecting land uses/land cover changes have been implemented in the upland regions over the last five decades (Clement, 2007; Simelton et al, 2017) (Figure 1)
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