LIMESTONE MOUNTAINS. Viet Nam has 1.15 million hectares of karst, holding 396,200 hectares of the country's remaining natural forests.

The Nung An migrated into the watersheds of Cao Bang province two hundred years ago from southern China when the region was densely forested. For example, in the 1920s in Phuc Sen village, the limestone mountains were covered in dense forests. As Van Chan, a village leader noted:

When I was a child, the elders used to tell me that the commune was covered with jungle. Foxes caught their chickens, tigers caught their pigs, and wild boars trampled on their cassava fields. The forest was public property and can be used by all except the sacred forest where our ancestors lived.

With low population density combined with isolation, there was minimal pressure on the forest; however, this began to change with the construction of the national highway that opened Cao Bang to the outside world in 1932. Logging pressure, in-migration, agricultural expansion and other forces gradually led to forest clearing and by the 1950s, little remained of the once vast forest area. As one elder recollects:

There was no forest, for firewood. We had to go 10-15 kilometers to collect firewood and get permission from another commune...after some time they began turning us away. It was a very shameful experience. During Tet festival our town did not worry about meat and rice; we worried about firewood. We had to dig all the tree roots so we could have firewood to celebrate the festival.

Click here to enlarge Map 4

In 1960, the villagers of Phuc Sen began to address the fuel wood shortage after Ho Chi Minh made a call for tree planting. The People's Committee assigned land to villages and households for management. Each village was given two to four limestone hillocks or one side of a mountain to protect and regenerate, while families were assigned degraded land for reforestation near their farms. The community met regularly to plan planting activities relying on several native species, however, natural regeneration also took place and after ten years, much of the area was regaining forest cover. During this period, each village developed rules and regulations to guide forest use. Today over 200 species are found in some areas. Part of the reforestation process involved the planting of trees and natural regeneration of swidden lands. As shifting cultivation gradually declined, so did the incidence of forest fires. Elevation and distance from village in the valley has influenced the type of local ownership agreements, this has also influenced the pattern of regeneration and the spread of the successful management to neighboring communities.

By 1990, Phuc Sen was self-sufficient in fuel wood production, while rice and corn yields increased due to additional soil moisture. In 2001, the Forest Resources and Environment Center (FREC) began meeting with Phuc Sen Commune leaders to bring villagers from other communes to discuss their forest management system. The broader goal of the program was to develop a Community Forest Management Network in Quang Uyen District, drawing on Phuc Sen's experience as a source of information and motivation. The first network meeting was held in January 2002. Through this and subsequent meetings, the importance of village-based forest management was revealed. According to the Vice Chairman of Doai Khon Commune:

Issues being discussed in this meeting concern us very much. The majority of our commune area is forest land. We share a border with one district and one other commune. Since 1985, we managed 992 hectares of forest, with management responsibilities divided between 4 villages.

Village forestry and the District network have been welcomed by local government officials and have gained active party support. The series of meetings was effective in articulating the importance of a flexible approach to community forest management. As the District Chief for Agriculture and rural Development (DARD) noted:

Rules need not be the same for each village. Rules should be flexible and based on culture, people and characteristics of the ethnic group...They should not come from DARD or the District: they should come from farmer discussions. Meetings should be held regularly to review activities and revise rules so that they can adapt to evolving situations.

FEEDING HOGS. A women feeds the family's animals with fodder collected from forests.

Recently, villagers harvested timber in the village forests to purchase wire to connect their households to the electrical power grid. Now, they are looking for ways to trade with the neighboring provincial markets given the demand for seeds they gather from their regenerating limestone forests. However, the unclear status of ownership in village-managed areas poses insecurity to their current operations. Even though there is a clear mechanism for household-managed forests, they have repeatedly expressed that it is best for everybody if particular forests remain village-managed. While the village forests of Quang Uyen District now enjoy the support of local government and People's Committees, and have aroused the interest of the Cao Bang Provincial Government; these initiatives still fall outside national programs and strategies. For example, the reforestation achievements of the Nung An of Phuc Sen and neighboring communes are not counted as contributing to the national program to "re-green" 5 million hectares. As such, while village forestry is becoming part of local government strategies, it has yet to receive national government recognition.

Traditional systems of CF are long established in Vietnam and in some areas continue to function well. The presence of CF policies and programs, however, could contribute to a strategic resurgence of indigenous forest conservation practices, as well as to the emergence of new spontaneous systems in much of Vietnam's uplands. At the present time, there remains ongoing external pressure to abandon traditional systems of management as other stakeholders (government, timber companies, migrants, etc.) enter remote upland areas. There are also many other potential threats to traditional communities including natural events such as drought and fire, or food shortages that may place greater pressure on the forest. Further, traditional communities are not necessarily cohesive and in agreement as to the use of resources. It is important that the government move quickly to promulgate new legislation and formulate new programs that empower villages to formally manage state lands.