Payments for environmental services as incentives for sustainable forest management in Thua Thien Hue Province, Vietnam | |
| Author | Tran Nam Thang |
| Call Number | AIT Diss. no.NR-11-04 |
| Subject(s) | Sustainable forestry--Vietnam--Thua Thien Hue Community forests--Environmental aspects--Vietnam--Thua Thien Hue |
| Note | A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Natural Resources Management, School of Environment, Resources and Development |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Series Statement | Dissertation ; no. NR-11-04 |
| Abstract | This study evaluates the current community forest management in the local context. It identifies potential environmental services (ES) germinated from the allocated forest as a compensation mechanism for the management and protection of local people on forest resources. It tries to find out a mechanism for payment for environmental services (PES) in the very local context and explore the additional sources of income for local people so that they would better protect and manage the resources allocated to them. In the findings on Forest management after forest allocation, the study concludes that sustainable participatory management and conservation requires an understanding of site - specific, rights structure, resource use and resource dependency patterns over time. These findings are documented by examining the resource use pattern overtime by the Katu people in Nam Dong district, Thua Thien Hue province, central Vietnam, before and after allocation of natural forest to the households of the community. Household inter view, key informant and group discussions were used for data collection and crosscheck. Descriptive analysis and pair- sample T- test are main tools used to explore those parameters. We found a weak performance of property rights and differences in the De facto to the De jure rights of forest recipients. On contrary to the increased rights, forest use and forest dependency of local people have been reduced due to the degradation of resources, and availability of alternative opportunities from emerging agriculture and animal grazing options. Considering dynamic nature of resource dependency overtime, it is necessary to consider in the post - allocation program which embrace the local context to have better forest protection and management as well as the satisfact ion of local people on the forest resources they manage. The dissertation further evaluates issues related to emerging values of community forest in term of environmental services. Looking at the two main aspects of Environmental services from allocated forest viz., (1) Carbon sequestration: the Vietnamese government is really concerned and is getting ready for the REDD experiment and capacity building for government staff, and (2) Watershed protection value: the WTA and WTP of local people as well as beneficiary in the downstream area are being assessed. There are promising initiatives for the PES in Vietnam. Vietnam was recognized as one among 14 countries to receive support from Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF). This aims to pay the compensation for developing countries in reducing deforestation and forest degradation in order to minimize GHG emission. This support would take place since June 25, 2008. In addition, the Vietnamese government, through the experimental payment for Environmental services by the Decision No 380/QĐ - TTg, dated 10.4.2008 within the watershed of Dong Nai and Da rivers covering Lam Dong and Son La provinces and recently Degree 99 dated 24 September 2010 announcing the national - scale implementation of the PES program would be taking into operation since 1/1/2011, has showed that Vietnamese government are willing to joint the new challenges toward the sustainable resource management scheme. The emerging value become critical since the willingness to pay of local people in Thua Thien Hue province show that they would be willing to pay higher than the present amount for the experimental models implemented in the Son La and Lam Dong province following Decision 380 and Degree 99 of the government. The REDD mechanism, if applied, would create a good additional source of income for local people while still sustaining the current utilization of forest resources in term of NTFPs and timber resource. With these additional sources of income, the livelihoods of local people tend to follow a good balance including contributions from all fields and that ensure a more stable livelihood which in turn meet with the desired outcome of forest allocation : forest protection and livelihood improvement for local people. With this structure of the incomes, local people would consider forestry as a combination of short, medium and long term investment apart from others. The issue related to Institutionalization of the sustainable (Effective, efficiency, equity) PES schemes and mechanisms the dissertation research has explored adaptation mechanisms of local people, forest owners and local authorities as well as related local institutions in adopting PES. We found that local people and institution are eager to participate with the PES schemes and there should be a comprehensive monitoring process to ensure effectiveness, efficiency, and equity across all types of monitoring and at all levels from national to local (province, district). A state body should be formed and worked as a mediator for all the matters related to PES scheme implementing and monitoring, qualifying, payment mechanism, transaction cost, law enforcement etc to make sure the system ’s sustainability. PES needs the cooperation and participation among related stakeholders from the policy making level to the grass - root local levels especially the integration mechanism in the district and provincial forest development strategies so that the PES scheme can be smoothly implemented and meet with the requirement both by the services users and providers. In a ddition, the awareness building activities should be stretched out so that people are more aware and willing to support the PES scheme at all levels. Therefore, the policy implication of the study on enabling conditions for PES schemes and mechanism, through applicable environmental services to the allocated forest of local people is not restricted to the community forests alone, it can be applied to all other stakeholders’ forests so that to help both conserving forest resources and improving the liveliho ods of forest owners, the study concludes that watershed protection services and carbon sequestration could be the best initial, potential income sources for local people apart from the current benefits from NTFPs and timber. It also set a good foundation for other services to be accounted for in the long run such as biodiversity and landscape beauty values. In addition, the institutional settings for the PES mechanism to come into operation would be of extreme importance for the government to ensure the program workable and sustainable over time. The government should be able to design a socially acceptable mechanism that involved all stakeholders into the process |
| Year | 2011 |
| Corresponding Series Added Entry | Asian Institute of Technology. Dissertation ; no. NR-11-04 |
| Type | Dissertation |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development (SERD) |
| Department | Department of Development and Sustainability (DDS) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Natural Resources Management (NRM) |
| Chairperson(s) | Shivakoti, Ganesh P.; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Webb, Edward L. ;Kusakabe, Kyoko ;Perret, Sylvain; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | The John D. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation; |
| Degree | Thesis (Ph.D.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2011 |