| European
Tropical Forest Research Network |
IS SUSTAINABLE MANGROVE MANAGEMENT POSSIBLE IN THE RED RIVER DELTA OF VIETNAM?
By Le Thi Van Hue
Although community-based natural resource management attracts international attention, it has not yet been widely implemented in Vietnam. In Vietnam the main strategies have been centralised management by state agencies and the assignment of management responsibility to individual households. We argue that the promotion of nationalisation and privatisation has not solved the problem of resource degradation and overexploitation, but has deprived many rural households of their livelihoods. We base this argument on a study of mangrove forest use and management in a village of Vietnam's Red River Delta, which shows that the local community is highly heterogeneous. We suggest that sustainable mangrove management requires a combination of institutional arrangements, including state control, private resource rights and community-based management.
Study area
Giao Lac village is a largely Catholic coastal community located in Giao Thuy
district, Nam Dinh province, which lies at the mouth of the Red River. The village
is home to an agricultural community who farm rice, but who are also engaged
in animal husbandry and fisheries. It is bordered to the south by the central
dike, an inter-tidal area and the South China Sea. The inter-tidal area occupies
more than 600 ha, 400 hectares of which have been planted with mangroves. There
are 5 shrimp ponds in this area.
Giao Lac's first cooperative was formed in 1959. During this time, the village managed the forests on behalf of the district. The villagers were not allowed to go to the forests as they had done before. The People's Committee put guards along the dike to protect the forests. Part of their job was to stop those who entered the mangroves illegally and even confiscate firewood. Thus, everyone tried his or her best to poach the forests. They even felled big mangrove trees for firewood, a situation that had never occurred before.
Impacts of economic
reform
During the 1980s, a household-based economy increasingly displaced the cooperative-based
economy. During the Doi Moi period, China became the biggest importer of Vietnam's
marine products. In response to this, the mangroves were destroyed and shrimp
ponds were constructed. Households bid publicly for a lease to manage a shrimp
pond. Although the bidding process is open to everybody, only the rich with
sufficient capital, labour, management skills and political power are able to
participate in the process.
Since 1990, clams have become a valuable commodity, about 5 times more valuable than in the past. Those who had connections with Chinese traders who sold clams to the bivalve markets in China began farming clams by putting in place a system of nets on the inter-tidal area. Many people have become rich very quickly from farming clams and trading in marine produce. This process of claiming land excluded the poor and female-headed households. These people did not have any place to go and dig clams. Consequently, a number of people, especially poor women and girls, became marginalised.
Danish Red Cross mangrove
plantation project
In 1997, the Danish Red Cross assisted Giao Lac to plant 400 ha of mangroves
for the protection of sea dikes and other assets of coastal dwellers. The project
was designed to select poor households with sufficient labour to plant mangroves.
In reality, very few poor households were actually selected to participate.
The majority were middle-class or upper-middle-class households, who were the
hamlet heads' relatives and friends.
In 1999, when the mangroves were two years old, the village guards who are paid more than US$ 25/month decided to sell tickets to local people who wanted to collect marine creatures in the mangroves. The guards kept the money for themselves. This created resentment between people in the village and the guards, as the enclosure of the protected mangrove forests had transferred control over the resources to the guards. The result was highly inequitable, as the poor could not afford to buy the ticket to enter the mangrove forests to look for marine creatures.
The mangroves are presently six years old and the Danish Red Cross project is going to finish in 2005. However, no one knows who is going to manage the forests when the project ends. According to the village officials, the mangrove forests will be under the district's management, a system of management that disenfranchises Giao Lac's poor inhabitants. Many are afraid that the district will privatise the forests by granting concession to individuals who have capital sources to invest in shrimp ponds, to convert the forests into shrimp farming industry areas. Nobody wants to lose the forests again.
Conclusion
The Doi Moi economic reforms, while opening up economic opportunities for many,
have not benefited the whole community. Rapid changes in the allocation of private
leaseholds in the coastal area and the legalisation of private businesses have
deprived many poor households of livelihoods dependent on open access to communally-held
mangrove resources. Female-headed households, women and girls have been the
most adversely-affected.
Since the local community itself is highly heterogeneous and outsiders also use the resources, it does not make sense to propose only 'community-based resource management'. A combination of national control, private ownership and community-based management therefore appears to be the most suitable strategy to promote in the case of Giao Lac.
A Central Government agency would continue to manage the dike system, as a breach in the dike system can cause far-reaching damage to many communities. Households would manage individual shrimp ponds according to private sector principles, since the proceeds from the bidding process can be spent on the village's infrastructure. The whole community would oversee the management of the mangrove forests and be granted the right to require shrimp pond farmers to post 'environmental bonds' or otherwise pay money into a local fund that would be used to offset loss of income to other villagers as a result of mangrove habitat destruction.
Further information:
Le Thi Van Hue
Institute of Social Studies
P.O. Box 29776
2502 LT The Hague
The Netherlands
E-mail: hue@iss.nl