Asia-Pacific Environmental Innovation Strategies (APEIS) Research on Innovative and Strategic Policy Options (RISPO) Good Practices Inventory

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1 Asia-Pacific Environmental Innovation Strategies (APEIS) Research on Innovative and Strategic Policy Options (RISPO) Good Practices Inventory Indigenous Knowledge and Customary-based Regulations in Managing Community Forest by the Thai Ethnic Group in Vietnam s Northern Mountain Region Summary of the Practice Keywords: Forest management, self-financing, indigenous knowledge, and customary based management Strategy: Promoting local/indigenous knowledge-based sustainable resource management Environmental areas: Water resources management, ecosystem and biodiversity conservation, and forest conservation Critical instruments: Self-regulation, design, planning, and management, organisational arrangements, awareness/capacity building Country: Vietnam Location: Banh Village, Thanh Yen Commune, Dien Bien District, Lai Chau Province (North-western Mountain Region) Participants: Traditional village leaders, individual local people, local authorities, local communist party cell, state forest protection agencies Duration: 1989 present Funding: Mainly community self-funding Background Over the last several decades, as in many other upland areas of Vietnam, Lai Chau Province has been confronted with the problem of forest degradation. One of the many reasons contributing to this problem is the negative impact of weak institutional management of the forest. Like many other ethnic minority groups in Vietnam, the Thai people in Lai Chau Province have traditionally managed and used the local forest as a common property, utilising their indigenous knowledge and enforcing their customary laws. From the early 1960s to the mid-1980s, however, the state managed the forest, replacing traditional practices with state forest enterprises (responsible for managing large areas of forest) and agricultural cooperatives (responsible for managing small forest areas), which were created to represent the state in administering the land and forest. In the mechanism of bureaucratic centralism, such administration depended on the responsibility and capacity of members of the management board, who often had poor management skills. This led to serious deforestation due to either totally clearing forest for cash crop plantations (in large areas of forest) or free access for every one, both local villagers and outsiders. The local residents suffered the most from the consequences of forest destruction. Around 1989, apart from decollectivization, a government land reform instituted was to allocate both forest and agricultural land to individual households for long-term use. But the Thai community in Banh Village (Ban Banh) in Dien Bien District of Lai Chau Province organized themselves in 1989 to manage the forest as their communal property by reviving and adapting their traditional knowledge and customary laws. The community became the first village in the province to practice genuine community-based forest management in the current context. And very recently, in December 2003, the customary practices of forest management in Ban Banh were for the first time recognised by the new national Land Law Objectives Forest plays a very important role in the Thai people s material and spiritual life. It helps to maintain water resources for agricultural production, especially wet rice paddy (as the main crop and the primary staple food in the Thai people s lives) in the valley downstream, and provides materials for building houses (the Thai live in houses on stilts with wooden or bamboo walls and floors) and daily household necessities. The forest is also the home of their ancestors spirits. Dead people must be buried in the forest; otherwise, the Thai people believe, their spirits would never rest. From the early 1970s to the late 1980s, however, the forest upstream of the village was almost completely cleared. The deforestation compelled the community to take the initiative to protect their own forest. They preferred to have community forest rather than to divide it up for individual management, as stipulated by state law. This stems from the objectives of ensuring equal access to forest resources for all 1

2 community members, using the resources in sensible ways based on traditional knowledge developed from experience, and therefore maintaining the forest for the entire community in a sustainable way for the long term. Description of the activity Ban Banh (Banh Village) is located in a valley and alongside a stream in the Thanh Yen Commune, Dien Bien District, Lai Chau Province in the northern mountains of Vietnam. The village includes 384 people in 92 households (in 2002). The local economy is primarily based on wet rice cultivation, fishing, and animal husbandry, which are their traditional ways of living. From the 1970s to the 1980s, much of the forest area in Ban Banh was burnt, because both the villagers and their neighbours (in adjacent villages) were in a race to expand the area of their swidden cultivation and grazing lands. The local forest was completely destroyed in 1986 after a big fire caused by the neighbours (the H mong) slash-and-burn practices. In 1989, after suffering from the consequences of losing so much forest, Mr. Lo Van Doi, the community leader, and Mr. Lo Van Un, a village elder, together with the village communist party cell, persuaded the villagers to come to a meeting to discuss a plan for managing the forest by both planting trees and protecting wild trees for regeneration. After actively participating in a number of meetings, the whole community came to an agreement that they would use and manage the forest as communal property, as is their traditional custom. This property is managed by a range of approved community rules, which are set up based on the Thai indigenous knowledge of how much, which, and when forest products can be collected, their customary practice of equal access to the resources by every family, and of only using the resources for purposes inside the community. The rules are enforced by a forest protection group appointed by the villagers, which is operated based on regular participation by the villagers. After approval by the majority of villagers, the informal community forest management rules were submitted to the Commune People s Committee to support their implementation. Eleven years later (in 2000), these rules were adopted to become the formal community forest protection and management regulations under the new Decree No. 26/1999/TT-BNN-KL of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. Ban Banh with its communal forest in the background. Mr. Lo Van Doi (right), the long-term village leader, was one of the first organisers to form and manage the community forest in Ban Banh. Critical Instruments Overview The success of community forest management in Ban Banh is due to the use of four major instruments actively employed by the local people. First, the community set up strict rules on the use and management of their forest as a result of their experience of the consequences of deforestation that impacted negatively on their agricultural production and culture. Second, the most important reason why the rules work well is that they are designed, planned, and managed based on villagers indigenous knowledge, their ethnic culture, experience, and the needs of the whole community. Third, self-regulation is implemented through organisational arrangements with the local authorities, and later with a government forest protection agency, in order to ensure effective enforcement. Finally, raising awareness, disseminating information, and promoting the participation of local people in issues related to forest management have contributed to the success of the Ban Banh initiative. Self-regulation The community set up strict rules for management of the local forest The loosening of state forest control and the threat to Thai culture from serious deforestation in Ban Banh prior to 1989 motivated the local leaders to organise the entire village to set up its community forest and manage it by 2

3 local control rules, which are voluntarily agreed to by the majority of villagers. The villagers then democratically select their own representatives for the community forest protection group of three people, on a two-year basis, to enforce their community forest management rules. These rangers duties are to make sure that only community members access the community forest and that the villagers comply with the rules. Each family in the community voluntarily contributes ten kilograms of rice each year to the community forest protection fund. The fines collected from forest violations are also kept in this fund, which is used mainly to pay for the work of the three forest controllers and to hire some temporary forest rangers in the open forest period. In brief, strict rules, villagers voluntary agreement, and severe enforcement of the rules have contributed to the success of the communal forest management system. Design, plan, and management Forest management regulation is designed, planned, and managed based on indigenous knowledge and customary practices Ban Banh villagers voluntarily follow the community rules on forest use and protection because they are based on their own indigenous knowledge of the forest and are planned and managed according to their Thai ethnic culture and customary practices. In the earlier period (1989 early 1990s), a native tree species (Trau) was planted by the whole community. For collecting firewood each month, one household is allowed to go to the community forest for a period of five specified days to collect five shoulder -loads of firewood from only dried trees branches. But villagers are not allowed to enter the forest from May to August, when their indigenous knowledge recognises that the flora in the forest reproduce and grow quickly, in order to avoid disturbing the forest. The quota on collecting firewood is fixed for an average household, and it can be exchanged among villagers. The firewood can also be sold at the market. If a family has a funeral or a wedding, or experiences difficulties, it can be permitted to collect extra shoulder-loads of firewood. Collecting other forest products (e.g., a special plant that is used to make New Year cakes, bamboo shoots) and timber for housing construction needs to be approved in advance. The community council processes applications for collecting these products and makes decisions in consultation with villagers, based on their knowledge of available resources in the forest. Since the rules were implemented, nearly 15 years ago, only two cases of violations of the rules were recorded, both in Each household is allowed to collect five shoulder -loads A typical Thai house in Ban Banh is built of timber of firewood per month. and bamboo collected from the community forest. Organisational arrangements The Ban Banh self-regulation of forest management is successfully implemented by an organisational arrangement: the community/local authorities/government forest protection agency The leaders and Thai people in Ban Banh, together with Thanh Yen Commune authorities and a state forest agency, take great interest in managing the community forest. The roles of the village head and the elders, who are respected by Thai custom, are very important in encouraging local people to actively participate in creating appropriate regulations for forest management. During the early stage ( ), when the community rules of managing forest were not yet acknowledged by the state, local leaders keenly worked together with local authorities (Thanh Yen Commune People s Committee, Ban Banh Communist Party cell) to gain the recognition of the community rules at the commune level and the cooperation of local authorities to implement and monitor them effectively. Since 2000, the Ban Banh community rules on forest management have been legalised, and the village leadership and villagers have closely cooperated with the Dien Bien Forest Protection Unit (a state agency at the district level) to continue carrying out their local forest management regulations the old rules in the new context. 3

4 Awareness/capacity building Raising local awareness and disseminating information on the community forest management regulations The Thai ethnic minority culture is maintained very ardently among the Ban Banh villagers. Being aware of the importance of the forest in the ethnic Thai lives and culture, the Ban Banh leadership has encouraged villagers to vigorously involve themselves in managing and developing their forest. They understand that managing the forest in a communal way through regulating community rules, as their older generations did, is the best way to protect the forest, which helps to maintain water resources for wet rice cultivation and fishing (traditional Thai ways of life), and provides timber, in particular, for building their traditional houses on stilts. This contributes to raising awareness of sustaining the community forest from one generation to the next. In cooperating with the community authorities, the Thai people in Ban Banh have been successful in disseminating information on their community forest occupation to outsiders (e.g., surrounding villages), so it helps to keep them from violating the Ban Banh community forest rules. Moreover, their practices of managing the forest have been given serious attention by the Dien Bien District forest protection agency, where the case of Ban Banh has become a lesson to learn from, in order to change the approaches to forest management employed by the agency s officers. In 2000, the agency assisted with legalising the Ban Banh forest management regulations and supported them with a small amount of money for printing them for wide distribution. Impacts After over 13 years since Ban Banh started managing its community forest, the Thai villagers have developed more than 200 hectares of forest from 56 hectares of bush. The forest has supplied plenty of firewood for the villagers use and recently started producing timber. Local livelihoods have improved because the forest has also helped protect the water resources, which has enabled villagers to cultivate two wet rice crops with higher yield (nine tonnes per hectare per crop), and made it possible for 80 percent of village households to develop their own fish ponds fish-raising now occupies about 65 percent of total animal husbandry income in the village. The existing community forest has also contributed to maintaining the ethnic Thai minority culture: villagers can still practice wet rice cultivation and fishing, they can still collect forest products to serve their own lifestyle (e.g., building houses on stilts), and their dead beloved ones have shelters in the forest. Ten years after Ban Banh started forming and managing their community forest through their customary practices, in March 1999, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, for the first time, issued Decree No. 26/1999/TT-BNN-KL on establishing community rules for forest protection and development. In December 2003, also for the first time, the State Land Law acknowledged community rights for forest management and development, although similar rights for individuals were recognised by the 1993 Land Law. It can be said that the case of Ban Banh which is one of many good existing examples of community rights and active participation in forest management in Vietnam has influenced policy makers, and so it has had positive impacts, particularly on forest policy in Vietnam. Ban Banh forest management has contributed to maintaining Thai ethnic culture... and ways of life 80% of village households have fish ponds. 4

5 Lessons Learned The success of community forest management and development in Ban Banh is due to the following factors: - Setting up the community forest in Ban Banh and managing it communally is appropriate to Thai custom, in which forest is considered the common property of the whole community. Community members join hands and are responsible for observing their local law. The village chief and the village elders council are highly prestigious and play the most important roles in ensuring the interests of the whole community are protected. - The community rules are set up by the villagers themselves. They initiated and committed themselves to participate in all processes of creating their own effective regulation. The motivation of the Thai villagers for doing this stems from their desire to preserve their traditional culture and lifestyle, which are threatened partly by losing forest. - The rules are developed based on Thai indigenous knowledge of local forest flora and biodiversity, so that they can help to prevent human disturbance of the development of vegetation in the critical period of the year and overexploitation of forest resources. As a consequence, the forest is being sustainably managed and biodiversity is protected. - Strong community leadership has contributed to the successful implementation of the community regulations. It is indicated in the ways community leaders have worked together, which convinced local authorities and state agencies to accept the rules and community forest management before they were acknowledged by the state. Working together among all villagers and... among villagers, state forest officers, and researchers is the key to success of Ban Banh initiative. Potential for Application The system and methods of effectively managing and developing the community forest in Ban Banh have become a model of real community-based forest management in Lai Chau Province. With technical support from Da River Social Forest Development Project (funded by the German Society for Technical Co-operation [GTZ]), Lai Chau Province s Department of Forest Protection (DFP) has adopted the Ban Banh model to change their approaches to forest protection and management. Guidelines called the Participatory Constructing of Community Regulations of Forest Management and Development have been designed by the DFP, based on the foundation of the Ban Banh initiative, for application in the whole province. In the last three years ( ), 1,785 communities in the province have completed regulating their community rules of forest management under the DFP guidelines. The potential for applying the Ban Banh model is large, as the regulations and practices are made by the local people, for the local villagers, and managed by local residents. The approach will be more successful, however, in communities where they have a great sense of unity and community spirit. In places that individualistic approaches dominate the community, the application may face limitations. 5

6 Although the Ban Banh practices have been strongly successful, there are still some technical issues of forest development that the existing local knowledge cannot explain which need the attention of forest agencies and scientists. Contacts 1. Lo Quang Chieu, Da River Social Forest Development Project, Lai Chau Province (SFDPLC), Vietnam: 2. Tuong-Vi Pham, Centre for Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam: 3. Tran Chi Trung, Centre for Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam: Case reviewers: Tuong-Vi Pham and Tran Chi Trung, Centre for Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam: and * Photos in this document were taken by Tuong-Vi Pham, CRES, and Lo Quang Chieu, SFDPCL. Information date: 10 March 2004 References 6