Case study_Existence: Culture, ecology and community development in Vietnam

Existence January 2001 1

The Centre for Human Ecology Studies of

Culture, ecology and community development Existence

Summer 2001 Volume 1, Number 2

Existence is a quarterly newsletter of the Centre for Human Ecology Studies of Highlands (CHESH), a

Vietnamese non-governmental organisation that works with ethnic minority farmers in the

Focus on Quang Binh: Forest land rights Farmer networking Ethnic minority

education

2 Existence January 2001

The Centre for Human Ecology Studies of Highlands (CHESH) is a member organisation of the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations. CHESH is dedicated to supporting ethnic minority farmers in highland Southeast Asia through farmer networking and capacity building of local NGOs. CHESH was founded in 1999 as an extension of Towards Ethnic Women (TEW), a national-level Vietnamese NGO supporting farmer networking and village-level development projects. TEW has worked in the highlands of Vietnam since 1994. Existence is a quarterly newsletter outlining the research and fieldwork of CHESH, TEW and our field offices in northern, central and Central Highland areas of Vietnam. Contributions to Existence are welcome. Contact us to receive copies, but please note that no subscriptions are available at this time. The newsletter is also published in Vietnamese, under the name Sinh Tån. Tran Thi Lanh editor Duong Quang Chau deputy editor Michael L. Gray managing editor Existence CHESH/TEW

Volume 1, Number 2 Summer 2001

Culture, ecology and community development

In this issue 4 Training for the future The Centre for Community Capacity Development is developing a new approach to ethnic minority education. 8 Join the club Key farmers in Quang Binh province build interest clubs as basis for community development. 11 What good is a red book? CIRD land allocation programme raises awareness — and questions. 17 Gender and culture TEW’s approach to working with women is described along with details about a programme with ethnic Sinh Mun women in Son La.

Existence



W elcome to t h e

second edition of Existence , a n e w s l e t t e r d e v o t e d t o h i g h l a n d d e v e l o p m e n t issues. As we did in our first issue, we will continue here to describe the results of f i e l d w o r k i n i t ia t ed by Towards Ethnic Women and its s i s t e r o r g a n i s a t i on s CHE SH and CIRD.

One of TEW’s early projects was to set up a field office in Quang Binh province. This field off i ce, the Cen tre for I n d i g e n o u s K n o wl e d g e Research and Development, has now registered as a separate organisation. In this issue, several stories will outline the impact CIRD has had on ethnic minority communities in highland Quang Binh.

The first will describe the training centre that has been built to allow ethnic minorities the opportunity to learn in a familiar and comfortable environment. The centre, called CCCD, also provides young staff members with the opportunity to learn more about the different cultures of the farmers they work with.

The second story will describe CIRD’s experience with ‘interest groups,’ which are the village and commune-level farmer’s groups that organise activities in areas like gardening and animal husbandry. One of CIRD’s main aims to is to

provide the credit and support needed for farmers to increase production in these and other areas. A third story will describe the model of credit delivery that CIRD has developed, based originally on the model developed by another Vietnamese NGO called the Rural Development Services Centre (RDSC).

Finally, the impact of CIRD’s land-use r igh ts programme will be described by telling the story of how one Ma Lieng village reacted when outsiders cut trees in an area contracted to the villagers.

This issue of Existence will also describe one of TEW’s earliest field programmes, in the Sinh Mun village of Bo Ngoi, in Son La province. As a result of this project, a very strong network of women farmers has

developed in Yen Chau district, where Bo Ngoi is located.

Finally, this issue will provide a short update of events in On Oc village, where villagers are engaged in an ongoing effort to protect the valuable forest which surrounds their community. In the last i s sue, we descr i bed a community road-bui lding project which was effective in preventing outsiders from coming to cut the forest. Now, new pressures are emerging that the villagers must face.

As always, we hope you find this issue informative. As TEW and CHESH continue to grow, our work will take us to new and exciting areas. We hope in the next few issues to describe the CHESH programme in Lao PDR, and outline our hopes for regional cooperation in other

This issue: focus on Quang Binh

Often labelled together as the ‘Chut’ the ethnic groups in Quang Binh actually include the Sach,

CIRD has now registered as a separate organisation and runs a training centre in Quang Binh.


Learning by doing: CCCD students immunise poultry.

W hen you stand on the hill across from the f i v e w o o d e n

buildings that make up the Centre for Community Capacity Development, you would not think you were looking at an especially unique place.

In front of the buildings are four large fish ponds, followed by a garden now dominated by acacia seedlings. On the right, a gentle slope drops down to a small lake, and the slope is also covered with acacia.

The buildings are large, open structures set in cement. Some already look old, while others still have the fresh look of recently cut wood. On most days, people mill about the centre cooking, cleaning, looking after animals and gardening. With its pig shed and chicken coops, it doesn’t look

like much more than a big farm. But CCCD is not really a

farm. It’s a school, and a centre where people from a range of cultures come to work and learn. Maybe even this doesn’t make CCCD unique. Come a little closer, however, and meet the people. At CCCD you can find women and men of all ages. Bright-eyed teenagers and village elders. People from the cities and people from the mountains. Professionals with advanced degrees, and illiterate farmers learning how to read and write.

What makes CCCD unique is that all of these people have come together to learn from each other, in an atmosphere where everyone’s experience is valued.

New approach needed

CCCD i s th e t r a in ing component of the Centre for I n d i g e n o u s K n o wl e d g e Research and Development, CIRD, which runs development programmes across Quang Binh province. CCCD was started so that highland farmers would have a place to meet and learn, in a location that would be familiar to them and offer them a chance practice new skills immediately.

The Quang Binh People’s Committee supported the idea, and allocated 14.2 ha of land outside Dong Le town, Tuyen Hoa district, for CIRD to build a practical training centre for agroforestry and community development. Five buildings were soon built to accommodate up to 60 farmers and staff. There are now 10 students at the school, enrolled in the very first

Training for the future CCCD develops new approach to minority education



CCCD training course for ethnic minority youth.

The students practice new skills on a 0.7 ha garden, which has 400 fruit trees, as well as local crops like corn and several types of potato. There is also a 400 sq.m herbal medicine garden that has plants from northern and central Vietnam. On the hill behind the CCCD compound is a 6.8 ha regeneration forest with 5,200 cinnamon trees and 4,000 acacia trees. Regulations on forest protection have been set up, and the Vietnamese villagers around CCCD respect the boundaries of the forest.

CCCD has been the location for over 30 training courses and workshops for coordinators and key farmers from around Quang Binh, and the centre’s RVAC model is developing rapidly. Other organisations like LIM and the Food Secur ity Programme are beginning to take notice, and they now want to build their own training centres. These organisations recognise that there is a shortage of educational options for ethnic minority farmers.

CIRD and TEW staff had some early experiences with minority education that led them to open their own training centre. When TEW worked in Son La province, some Sinh Mun minority students were sent to a vocational school in Lang Son for six months. But after they finished their studies, none of the students continued working with the TEW project.

Some Vietnamese (Kinh) farmers from Quang Binh province were also sent to vocational schools, but they also returned to their villages without becoming involved in CIRD projects.

CIRD director Duong Quang Chau says this is a common problem for ethnic minority students who attend schools and colleges outside their villages:

“We learned that the approach taken at the vocational schools is very theoretical... and the students found it very difficult because they did not have the opportunity to practice new skills.

“Also, the environment at the school has a very big impact on their thinking. They did not want to go back to their communities to work on activities like gardening – they wanted to be government staff, which is common among ethnic minorities who go outside their villages to a new area.”

Chau says that vocational schools normally require a grade nine education, but that very few minority students ever reach this level. This was another reason that CIRD had to take education into their own hands.

One of the main goals was to create a training centre that offered an environment familiar to the students. Part of this is

the physical environment. The land that CCCD stands on is similar to much of the terrain in highland Quang Binh, with poor soil and sloping fields. There is also a large, forested hill behind the centre. The farmers who visit the centre feel at home, which is also due to the social environment that CIRD staff have created. The staff welcome farmers with an attitude that highland minorities do not always see when they come down from the hills. The mainly young staff have a keen interest in highland culture, and they are involved in a long-term effort to find new ways of integrating traditional agriculture and forestry techniques with the ‘outside methods’ that are represented in government policy.

This effort requires that the staff learn at least as much as they teach. And this is the part that is truly unique – because in Vietnam, both state and non-state development workers who go to the highlands are not always so good at learning. Ethnic minorities are often depicted as ‘backward’ and c om p l e t e l y l a c k i n g i n ‘scientific’ knowledge.

Youths like this Ma Coong man will be given the opportunity to become future community leaders.

“The environment at the school has a very big impact on their thinking.”


But CIRD staff have found that highland farmers have a range of knowledge they can draw on in creating the agro-forestry model at CCCD. This is good, because CIRD staff have not been entirely successful adapting their scientific knowledge to the difficult physical environment in highland Quang Binh. Last year, all of the chickens dropped dead from disease, and the honey bees CIRD staff were raising also died. The hope is that farmers and staff together can find some better techniques.

Culture as an educational tool

CCCD may be one of the few training centres in Vietnam where culture is given greater weight than science. Obviously, CIRD staff are interested in bringing more scientific agriculture, forestry and animal husbandry techniques to the poor farmers of Quang Binh. However, they are not interested in changing peoples’ lifestyles, making people ‘civilised’ or even stopping them from shifting cultivation.

This means that staff must

first learn about the culture of the people they are trying to help. Village elders are relied on to describe and explain their communities. Staff must learn quickly the customs and taboos of a community, so that farmers feel comfortable having these outsiders spend time in their houses and villages. This also helps make living at CCCD easier for the students.

So far the staff have found that the young farmers are very enthusiastic about learning from each other. There is less of a culture and language gap among the Khua, Ma Coong, Ma Lieng and Arem students then there is between staff and students. The older students help younger ones to learn, especially as som e have on l y basi c Vietnamese language skills. This is also important because some of the students are as young as 15, so they are not always responsible towards learning.

CIRD staff always try to point out how much knowledge comes from the culture that minority students take for granted. For example, the area around CCCD was infested with

From the distance it looks like a regular collection of farm buildings. But CCCD will be built into a major centre for

rats, and the staff had no solution to the problem. One Khua student built a rat trap on his own, based on what he learned as a youngster in his village. The trap was so successful that all the students copied his design, and over 100 rats were caught in a short time.

This type of confidence-boost is necessary when working with students who often feel they are at a disadvantage because their culture is ‘backward.’ Staff have found that the most important factor in keeping the students active and interested is to use practical methods whenever possible.

Also, in the near future, village elders and other senior farmers will be relied upon for much of the training. Older villagers will be invited to train the students in handicrafts like weaving, and farmers from other regions of Vietnam will provide training in areas like herbal medicine and forging tools.

Growing pains

Despite the success so far with



Not always working: staff and students dance the night away.

the first CCCD training course for ethnic minority youth, CIRD staff are making some changes as they go along. After the Tet (New Year) celebrations, four of the original 14 students did not return to the training centre. CIRD staff were not overly surprised about this, as they knew the course would be a challenge for the students.

As director Duong Quang Chau says: “In some of the villages, young people don’t have to do much work, they just hang around with their friends. For them, going to school means sitting in a classroom, whereas at CCCD they have to work, clean, cook and garden – and in their minds this is not learning.”

At first, the students were put on an intensive schedule that went at least eight hours per day, six days a week. Now, staff have realised that the students need more free time, and the work will be dropped back to four or five days per week. Chau also says that in the future, two students from each village will attend the course, rather than just one, to make it easier for them to adjust to new surroundings.

The 10 students who remain at CCCD seem to enjoy the work very much, and they have a good relationship with the staff. Most want to go back to their villages to begin work, and Chau thinks this is a positive result of the course.

“This is a good sign because other ethnic minority students who study in big towns don’t want to go back to their villages, so this means our strategy is moving in the right direction.”

The students will now rotate between their villages and the training centre, so that they can apply what they learn directly to their areas.

“This is so they can clearly see the results of their work,” Chau says. “If they only see results at CCCD, they won’t think it’s because of their work, but because of others.”

Chau thinks that moving between the villages and the centre will help the students grow quickly into their role as key farmers and coordinators for the communities. The goal is for the students to lead networking among farmers, and for some to become field-based CIRD staff members. This type of role is already taken by some Kinh farmers that CIRD works with, including one woman from Lien Trach commune who is now responsible for the farmer network in the three Kinh communes of Bo Trach district.

A broad base for training

CCCD is not only a vocational training centre for young students. It is a pilot model in natural resource management and sustainable land use. Government officials as well as farmers are invi ted to participate in the many

workshops held. The centre is located close to rail and road transportation, and the farmers can travel there without much difficulty. But care was taken not to make the centre too big or fancy in any way.

In fact, the land around CCCD was so poor that neighbouring farmers did not want it. They didn’t think any trees would grow there. But after two years, fruit trees and l ocal t r ee speci es ar e flourishing. This took a lot of time and money, but the minority farmers can also see that it is the result of their labour. And as their confidence grows, they can take over more roles and responsibilities in community development work.

In the long run, CIRD staff hope CCCD will be a field office for key farmers, where they coordinate activities in the villages. Although this is still several years away, the district and province authorities are already impressed with what has been accomplished. ~

“Other ethnic minority students who study in big towns don’t want to go back to their villages.”


O ne of the key goals for CIRD, and TEW, is to promote networking

among ethnic minority farmers. The belief is that farmers can learn best from each other, and gain the confidence needed to take more work into their own hands. The main approach to networking in Quang Binh is farmer ‘interest clubs’ for g a r d e n i n g a n d a n i m a l husbandry.

The first approach that CIRD took to working with the ethnic minority farmers in Quang Binh was to find key farmers at the village level, who would receive intensive training and then re-train other members of their community.

This was the approach that TEW took when working with communities in northern Vietnam, such as the Dao people in Ha Tay province and the Sinh Mun in Son La.

But after one year of trying this approach, things were not progressing well in several communities. Staff carried out additional research to see what was wrong. They found that in some communes, the wrong people had been chosen to be key farmers. The farmers were not all enthusiastic about learning, and in some cases only applied what they learned to their own households.

Sharing with others

It was decided that a new approach was needed, and so CIRD helped the communities set up ‘interest clubs,’ which were essentially groups of

Join the club Farmers build interest groups as basis for community development

people who want to learn more about gardening, animal husbandry, or savings and credit techniques.

Farmers who wanted to join the interest groups did so on a voluntary basis. There was a great deal of flexibility, and members met to set up their own membership standards and regulations. Typical standards include having some land, enough labour, and showing enthusiasm and a willingness to share with others.

Initially groups were kept to about 20 or 25 key members. Management boards were set up with a group leader, deputy leader and one person to manage funds. Members normally contributed from 5,000 to 10,000 dong at the

beginning, to cover operating costs. Then, members contribute 10,000 dong every month in savings, with the pooled funds loaned out to the neediest group members.

To join a gardening group and qualify for a loan, for example, members had to draw a map of their garden or household, and create an investment plan to discuss with the other members of the group. From these discussions the needs of the villagers for more training in animal husbandry, gardening or cultivation became clear. CIRD also provided training in savings and credit, and how to set up plans and manage finances.

Farmers chosen for training courses came to the CIRD training centre, CCCD, where they learned how to hold their own training courses back in their villages. To promote networking, the key farmers trained helped each other by re-

Enthusiastic coordinators and key farmers are the most important element for

Farmers with common interests come together in clubs, like this group visiting a garden pilot model.



training as a group, moving from commune to commune. And when one commune was trained, the farmers there moved on to other communes to train others.

Eventually, the interest club for savings and credit was merged into the other two groups. As of October, 2000, there were 14 interest clubs groups, in both animal husbandry and gardening, with over 350 members. The groups organise meetings every one to three months, to check on each others results and make improvements. For the most part, the groups are running

well, although there were some problems early on, when farmers were still learning new ways of organising.

Progress quickens

One Vietnamese (Kinh) group coordinator from Lien Trach commune, Tran Thanh Tung, says the groups in his commune ran into some early problems.

In a report delivered to Q u a n g B i n h p r o v i n c e authorities as part of the CIRD three-year evaluation in October 2000, Tung said that most members of the first groups were village or commune staff.

Hoang Van Phuoc is a member of the Lam Trach commune gardening club. Three years ago his family was very poor and lacked food for two or three months per year. His five small children were not old enough to contribute much labour, and his five ha of land was low quality, and full of unexploded bombs from the war. Phuoc took part in a training course sloping land cultivation and techniques for growing trees. He borrowed documents from CIRD to learn more, and soon began to build terraced fields on his land. Here, he recounts what he has gained from joining the gardening interest club in his commune: “Because I learned a lot from the training, CIRD staff chose my garden to build a pilot model. My family received 20 lychee trees and 7 custard apple trees, as well as more lessons in technique. We planted and cared for the trees, and they grew quickly. That number of trees is nothing to be proud of, but it did give my family faith in the new methods. From there we grew more trees of local species like jackfruit and tea, as well as short-term crops like potato, soy and peanuts. We wanted very much to grow more types of fruit trees, but we didn’t have the credit. “This was a constraint not just for my family, but for many people in the gardening club and the community as a whole. Seeing this, CIRD organised a credit programme for household economic development. I quickly filled in an application for credit and received five million dong to put into animal husbandry and gardening. I invested two million to make a pigsty and I bought four small pigs, one cow, more fertiliser and nearly 200 fruit trees of different types. Now I can sell 150 kg of pork every year. “Before we received credit, the gardening club

coordinators, including myself, went on a study tour to the north, to Bac Giang and Ha Tay. We saw clearly the benefits of gardening, and the importance of the various techniques we had studied. Again we gained trust and assurance in how our families were working. As a result, my family decided to grow more types of fruit trees and local species, and widen the area of our garden. We planted 120 lychee trees, of which 20 have given fruit. We also planted 50 trees of different types, like custard apple, mango, orange and grapefruit, which in one year will start to give fruit. We also planted 100 pepper trees, one ‘sao’ of tea and several other types of tree that are all growing well. In addition to the fruit trees, we planted more short-term crops like potato, cassava, soy, peanuts and green vegetables, to increase our income and improve our lives. “Looking back at the past two years of this new way of working... the economic life of my family has increased very clearly. We don’t lack food and we have a surplus left over to gradually pay back our loans. In terms of economic results, our children can continue studying, and everyone contributes to raising animals and producing – according to a daily, monthly and yearly plan. We spend our savings equally on everyone and the whole family is happy. “From the results of our work, looking towards the future, my family will improve our situation by gradually increasing the area of fruit trees, in order to build our farm to a larger scale and raise our living standard. In the past two years, many people in the commune, both farmers and government staff, as well as staff from other communes and the district, have visited my garden to share experiences. This has helped encourage my family a lot, and made us happy and confident about our economic development.”

Report from a gardening club member

He said that the management boards had too much work to do, so progress was slow. As a result, it was decided to reorganise the groups and include more enthusiastic people and those with more pressing needs.

Tung said: “From that time, group activities improved, and the quality of the work increased. The needs to meet household economic growth increased, so a big limitation was the lack of credit. CIRD responded by providing 80 million dong for the husbandry and gardening groups. Prior to delivering the credit, CIRD


brought the management boards and coordinators on study tours to Bac Giang and Ha Tay provinces. Combined with the knowledge gained at training courses, the study tours provided the basis for the two groups to develop and record good results.”

The management boards of the gardening clubs have requested a total of 160 million dong in credit from CIRD, with which they have purchased and planted 6,000 fruit trees in 102 household gardens. The 28 coordinators that received training at CIRD have all organised re-training courses in their villages and communes.

Start on a small scale

All indications are that the interest groups will continue to develop and play an important role in spreading knowledge throughout their communities. Some groups are beginning to divide and find new members to form new clubs.

Up to now, most of the

groups have involved only Vietnamese (Kinh) farmers. Three years has been adequate for the Kinh farmers to take over most of the activities from CIRD staff. For the ethnic minorities in Quang Binh, h owever , th is t ype of networking will take longer. CIRD director Duong Quang Chau says that the minority farmers must first become accustomed to savings in kind, then savings in cash, then finally credit.

“We have to work on a very small scale... setting up savings groups and making plans. The minority farmers only have experience with ‘free’ pig-raising, so we have to provide them with knowledge of common diseases, help them make pigsties and introduce vegetables into the pigs’ diet, like cassava and potato.”

Building for the future

Whereas the Kinh farmers over the next three years will take over almost all the activities that

CIRD staff are now doing – like research, writing proposals and managing activities – Chau thinks this process could take ten years in the minority c om m un i t i es . As t h ei r confidence grows, farmers will gradually take over more activities. This will require CIRD staff to learn new skills themselves, so they can act as supporters to the growing needs of the farmers. Staff members will procure outside information for the farmers, organise study t o u r s , c o n t a c t o t h e r organisations and state offices, and provide higher training in p r o j e c t a n d f i n a n c i a l management, and monitoring and evaluation.

Among the final goals: people’s funds based on the savings groups that are now being organised. In Kim Hoa commune, for example, 11 million dong was saved after one year, a figure that could grow to 30 or 40 million in a few more years. This will pave the way for larger and larger loans, as well as capital for

Building tree nurseries is one of the activities that interest clubs promote.



I n 1998 workers arried in Ke village to build a school. They had 90

mill ion dong from the government’s Programme 135, which aims to develop highland areas.

The workers set up their tents around the village, and soon they were busy at work. The village was bustling with activity, and the villagers watched as these strangers went about their business.

The Ma Lieng people of Ke village were happy to receive a new school building, but they were not impressed with the way to workers went about their job.

The villagers had just received land use contracts for the forest land surrounding their village, and they knew these contracts had been issued with strict rules and regulations about forest protection. So when the workers cut a number of trees from the contracted land, the villagers asked under whose permission the trees had been cut.

The workers didn’t seem to care about permission. “What’s the problem?” they asked, “the

wood is for the school.” The villagers didn’t see it

that way. The training courses and discussions surrounding the contracting of land all told them that they alone had the right to use and protect the forest land.

Tran Quoc Hien, the CIRD consultant responsible for the land allocation programme, puts it in terms of belief. Hien says the villagers were angry and confused about outsiders saying one thing and doing another: protect the forest, or cut it down?

When Hien came to the village shortly after the trees were cut, the villagers were very upset. He explained that the workers were contracted by the government – they were not officials themselves – and they clearly disregarded the law. But the villages have still lost faith that their contracts give them the power to manage the forests around their community.

For the villagers and the CIRD staff involved in land allocation, this was not a small problem. It indicates the long way to go before small forest-dwelling communities will truly have the rights that forest

What good is a red book? CIRD’s land allocation programme raises awareness – and questions

One of CIRD’s most important programme areas is natural resource management. CIRD helps ethnic minority communities in Quang Binh to obtain land use rights certificates and contracts for forest land. This story describes the outcome of the first CIRD land allocation programme, which covered two commues. It is based on a report by Tran Quoc Hien, the CIRD consultant responsible for land allocation.

allocation policy seems to promise.

When CIRD gave a three-year evaluation in front of Quang Binh province officials in late 2000, one Ke villager was invited to explain the situation and lodge a complaint directly to the province. Still, the villagers are waiting for any solution or comment from the province on how to solve the problem of the trees being cut without permission.

Highland Quang Binh

The three mountainous districts of western Quang Binh – Minh Hoa, Tuyen Hoa and Bo Trach – have some of the richest forest land left in Vietnam. They are also home to some of the poorest people in the country.

Ethnic minorities like the Ma Lieng, Sach, Ruc, May and Arem live by very modest means, with most of their income drawn from forest cultivation. These groups had little contact with outsiders until a f t er 1954 , wh en th e government of Vietnam began to concern itself with natural resource management.

These ethnic groups, together labelled ‘Chut’ by Vietnamese ethnographers, have mostly been resettled following the government policy to stop shifting cultivation. Some villages have been moved to new areas outside the forest, and given homes, tools and farm land.

One example is the Ma Lieng people, who live in a few small villages in western Tuyen Hoa


Villagers and staff worked on mapping together, based on existing land use.

district. One of the villages, Cao, was resettled by the government to an area very close to a Kinh (Vietnamese) village. The new village, Chuoi, was given homes, production tools and seeds to grow wet rice.

Unfortunately, the villagers were not happy with the new homes, mainly because altars had been built for them which did not correspond to the traditional style. Ma Lieng people have very specific cultural guidelines for choosing wood for a house – particularly for the altar. None of the guidelines were followed, so the C h u o i v i l l a g e r s w e r e uncomfortable in their new homes from the beginning. Also, the Ma Lieng villagers were unfamiliar with wet rice agriculture, and their yields were very low.

On top of this, Chuoi village was right next door to a Vietnamese village, and this had some negative impacts on the

Ma Lieng people. Alcohol use became more common, and many traditions and customs began to dwindle. Eventually, some of the villagers returned to their old location, where they believed their ancestor spirits would protect them.

The situation in Chuoi village contrasts with Ke village, which was not resettled by the government. When CIRD staff were carrying out research in Tuyen Hoa district in 1997, they found that Ke village had very strong traditions and very knowledgeable village elders. Because there were many other programmes already for Chuoi village, the CIRD staff decided Ke village would be a better site for a community development pilot model.

One of the key components of this pilot model was land allocation for both cultivation and forest land. At the same time, CIRD staff decided to initiate a land allocation p r o g r a m m e w i t h t w o

Vietnamese communes, one in Tuyen Hoa and one in Minh Hoa district. These communes were chosen because CIRD wanted to gain as much experience as possible before moving on to ethnic minority areas, and because it was felt that province and district authorities would agree more readily to land allocation in Vietnamese areas.

The three pilot models are now complete, and 2,869 ha of forest land has been allocated, along with 39 ha of cultivation land, for 189 families and 12 mass organisation branches (of both the Women’s Union and Youth Union). Seven sets of community regulations of forest protection were established as part of the programme, by people in Ke village and the two Vietnamese communes.

State forest policy

Before the late 1980s, the main concern for state forest



enterprises was meeting production quotas that were based simply on how much wood was cut. In this situation, for es t s wer e exp l oi t ed indiscriminately. Furthermore, the rights and responsibilities of different groups in managing forests were not clear, which led to more exploitation.

A f t e r d o i mo i , t h e government slowly began to change its approach. The 1993 Land Law allowed most of the benefits associated with private ownership, and guidelines issued by the Ministry of A gr i cu l t u r e a n d Rur a l Development permitted the allocation of forest land.

But still there are overlaps in government policies and decrees, and complications and conflicts emerge as a result. Cadastral staff do not have enough training or resources, and particularly in remote areas, the participation of villagers in the allocation process is quite limited.

Many problems emerge as a result, including inappropriate classification of land types, poorly drawn maps, and documents that are not accurate. Officials tend to record only the area of land that is allocated and the number of families that receive land. In other words, they do not pay attention to real benefits for the communities.

Sometimes the results go against the intentions of allocating land in the first place. People r eceive land-use certificates – called red books – but they do not understand the benefits and responsibilities that go along with these documents. The villagers prefer to receive contracts, which give them much less right to the land – but do come with money for protecting the contracted area.

In this situation, CIRD wanted to create a series of pilot models that would demonstrate the positive impact that land allocation can have on poor communities. In addition to economic benefits, the hope was to demonstrate the women and men can gain knowledge and confidence about their rights and responsibilities towards forest and cultivation land. Furthermore, through the allocation of some forest land to mass organisations, the first step could be taken in creating a legal basis for true community forests.

Steps towards empowerment

When CIRD staff decided to support a land allocation programme in Minh Hoa and Tuyen Hoa districts, of utmost importance was involving the farmers in as many steps as possible. The programme was very thorough, as one of the goals was to show the positive role that a small NGO can play in linking farmers and government offices.

The first was to meet with province and district-level authorities, to get permission to start the programme. Next, a meeting was held with commune officials to notify them of the programme. A project management board was established with members from province, district and commune-l evel o ff i ce s . Wor kin g regulations were established and an action plan created, based on the Land Law. The management board then selected an implementation team, who would be responsible for the training-of-trainer courses. Forest , agricultural and settlement land was then surveyed and classified.

The first training course for farmers was on natural resource management and land rights, including the different laws for forest , agr icul tura l and settlement land. After training, the land allocation process formally started, with specific tasks for each village and household. Conflict resolution was discussed, to help prevent any disputes. Then, mapping wa s ca r r i ed ou t wi t h individuals, households and groups of households, to confirm individual land plots and obtain formal witnesses from commune and district offices.

After this work was done, staff returned to the office to check and analyse all the documents. Formal maps were drawn and printed, and the final results were confirmed with the management board. Land-use r igh ts cer t i fica tes were purchased, printed with two spaces for the names of both husband and wife. The final maps were submitted to the Cadastral office, and the certificates were signed. The communes and villages were informed of the result, and a ceremony was organised to distribute the certificates.

Afterwards, seminars were held to review the process and discuss lessons learned. The whole process took ???? long. All of the activities incurred c os t s su ch a s t r a ve l , accomodation, food, salaries, formal fees, printing and so on, but the programme still was inexpensive compared to many other land allocation projects: The total cost for one ha of forest land was 150,000 dong, and the cost for agricultural land was 550,000 dong.

Women’s role recognised Mor e i mpor tan t than

financial considerations was the outcome for the villagers in

CIRD requested that both wives and husbands’ names appear on land use certificates.


terms of their knowledge, confidence and skills. One area that was very important for CIRD was the participation of women in the land allocation process.

To ensure that the role of women in natural resource management was recognised, CIRD requested that both wives and husbands’ names appear on land use certificates. This was possible because although by tradition it is men who inherit and ‘own’ land, all government documents are gender neutral. The issue was discussed with villagers, who agreed that it was important to represent women. Each community has its own customs regarding inheritance and land use, and CIRD staff did not try to challenge any of these traditions. Rather, the goal was to inform women of their legal rights and responsibilities, and give them the confidence to become more active in c om m un i t y a n d fa mi l y decisions about land use.

Another part of involving women was allocating land to c o m m u n e - l e v e l m a s s organisations, particularly the Women’s Union. This was how CIRD approached the creation of ‘community forests,’ as land cannot yet be allocated directly to a group of people – with the exception of existing mass organisations. The goal is to promote community forest areas alongside individual plots, to give people the opportunity to work together to develop a land use plan and protect the forest.

Not all conflicts are bad

The participation of whole communities was necessary because it was inevitable that disagreements and conflicts would emerge over the division of land. In the three areas where CIRD supported land allocation programmes, conflicts emerged over the location and size of

plots; the quality of forest in different areas; people wanting land near family and clan members; and overlaps in areas allocated under Decree 02 and previously contracted under Decree 01.

Also, areas previously allocated by government offices were not precisely demarcated, and some problems resulted because there was no unified approach to allocation by different government offices.

These conflicts all had to be solved during the process of allocation, which meant that villagers, officials and CIRD staff had to work closely together. Land allocation can sometimes bring to the surface conflicts which have remained dormant for years, and emotions can run high. So far, however, the conflicts that arose have been solved amicably, and they a c t u a l l y p r o v i d e d a n opportunity for farmers and staff to learn more about their rights and how to solve any future land use disputes.

The most time consuming conflict involved a border dispute between communes from different provinces — Quang Binh and Ha Tinh to the

north. Because provincial officials had to get involved, there was more paperwork than in other situations.

A crucial element of solving or preventing conflicts is the cr eat i on of com m un it y regulations on forest protection and land management. As CIRD staff member Tran Quoc Hien writes:

“Before land and forest allocation started, natural resource management followed top-down policies and directives which did not pay attention to how people managed their communities. But something that must be recognised is that managing and protecting natural resources depends a great deal on the participation of the community. Because of this, the role of the community must be respected, and the community’s own system of management must be written into regulations o n n a t u r a l r e s o u r c e management. This will help preserve and promote the traditional customs of each area and people, so that policies and directives can be built from the bottom up. Only this will result in true, sustainable management of natural resources.”

Mr Dung, the Ke village leader.



The following is a report written by Nguyen Huu Lai, chairman of the People’s Committee of Ngu Hoa commune, Tuyen Hoa district. The report is entitled “Impact and results of the forest and land allocation programme and building community regulations in Ngu Hoa commune.”

Ngu Hoa is a highland commune lying in the

northeast of Tuyen Hoa, Quang Binh. It is located in an area where the border between Quang Binh and Ha Tinh province is not clearly marked.

In 1983 following the resettlement policy of

Quang Binh province, 200 of 225 familes in Ngu Hoa were moved to Binh Thuan province (in the south) to build a new economic zone. Ngu Hoa commune was abolished. In May of 1985, many families returned, and the authorities reinstated Ngu Hoa as a commune at that time.

Our commune is an area of high potential, with

rich natural resources including the Rao Tro river and the Sot, Kin and Noc streams that are never dry, and provide a good source of fresh water for the people. Forest resources in Ngu Hoa are rich and diverse, and the land is fertile. There is even a flat plain of several dozen hectares near Y village that can serve as pasture land. The low line of hills on both sides of the Rao Tro is suitable for farming. Most of the food and goods we produce are from the forest. Outside a small amount of fertile land, most people in Ngu Hoa farm on swidden fields. Each year several dozen hectares of land is burnt for fields, with the wood collected and sold. Agricultural production in Ngu Hoa depends entirely on nature – the weather and natural

resources – which is why life is not stable. Forest resources and the land are gradually being depleted.

In April of 1997, the ICCO project (CIRD) came

to Ngu Hoa, and completely changed the awareness and way of working of the people of Ngu Hoa – through the household economic garden.

Here, in this report, I will not talk about all the

activities of the project, like the study tours, training courses, and credit, or the results of building the Sot dam. Neither will I talk about the devoted efforts of the project staff. Instead, I will just talk about the positive impact of the land and forest allocation programme that CIRD supported and carried out in our commune.

As a commune staff member, I understand

closely the hopes and aspirations of the people. Observing the activites of the land and forest allocation project, I have seen the following:

- The land and forest allocation programme has

been extremely important in terms of the consciousness of the people and developing in a new direction. It is completely suitable with the needs of the people.

- Before allocating land, the people of Ngu Hoa

received training about Decree 02 on forest land allocation, and their rights and responsibilities in receiving land. At the same time, the people of Ngu Hoa gained a better understanding of the value of our natural resources. The most important thing

(Continued on page 16)

A report on land allocation in Ngu Hoa commune

It is this bottom-up aspect of the programme that Hien feels is responsible for the success recorded so far. Hien reports that villagers made their own activities plans, and were aware of the releveant policies and decrees, as well as the specific location and size of all plots of land in their community.

The villagers solved most conflicts themselves, based on the regulations they drafted. This ensured that the process was fair, and it also helped build village solidarity.

Unfortunately, not all outsiders respect the rights that farmers now have over the

forest land surrounding their communities. The Ma Lieng people of Ke village discovered this when nothing was done about the wood cut from forest land allocated to them. With CIRD assistance, the villagers took their complaint to the commune and district. They did not ask to be reimbursed for the wood, they just wanted to know what the law said about this type of encroachment.

The villagers received no answer, so CIRD invited one woman from Ke village, .... Khai, to explain the situation to Quang Binh provincial officials. This was in the Fall, 2000. Still,

the villagers are waiting for any response or action from authorities at any level.

Until they here any news, the villagers have little faith in the rights accorded to them in their land use certificates – rights that CIRD staff told them would be protected by the government. This points to a very important issue that CIRD must consider as it continues to support land allocation in other communities: if no one pays attention to the rights of villagers in remote areas, then what good is a red book? ~


for the project was not the area of land allocated, but the capacity and awareness of the people.

- All conflicts related to land and borders were

solved by the commune and village authorities amicably before allocation (such as the border between villages 4 and 5, the border of the Resettlement Department forest, and some conflicts between families in Village 4). This was very important not only for the process of allocation but for improving village spirit.

- The work of allocating land was completely

democratic, and carried out on the principle that everyone should participate. The villagers discussed amongst themselves, decided for themselves how to divide the land, and signed their own application forms. Because of this, everyone understood very clearly every detail about the land they were receiving: the landmarks, borders, area, type of forest and an understanding of what they have to do with the land.

- In the documents, the land and forest allocation

certificate has the name of both wife and husband, which means that women and men have an equal role in using and managing land. This makes the women of Ngu Hoa much more encouraged and confident.

- In addition to land and forest allocation to

households, the programme allocated land to mass organisations, particularly the Women’s Union. All of the members of the union received land together, which was good for the spirit and unity of the whole community.

From the different steps of the land allocation

work, from the other support provided by the programme, and from our own knowledge, the people of Ngu Hoa have had many opportunities to raise our awareness. Although the land allocation programme has not been finished for long (only five months) there has still been a positive impact on the economic, social and environmental situation in Ngu Hoa commune. For example:

- To ensure our roles and responsibilities, and the

value of forest resources, the people wrote for themselves community regulations on protecting the forest. These regulations were built from meetings held in each village. After training, the villagers came up with regulations for each village, and these were unified and ratified in a general list of regulations for the whole commune.

- Another worthy point, along with the building

of community regulations on managing and protecting forests, was the selection of a management board. The management board has 7 people: the commune chairman, commune police officer, and the village leaders. These are people

that the villagers trust and they have been active in getting results.

- After the training course, the people

immediately became aware of the need to allocate forest. For example, Mr Ngoi and Lien from Village 4 didn’t let their children go into the forest to gather wood any more. And from the time regulations were set up, deforestation has stopped completely. None of the people of Ngu Hoa enter the forest to cut trees or collect wood anymore. And there have been no cases of forest being burnt, as used to happen occasionally in the past.

- After the management board dealt with three

cases of outsiders from Mai Hoa entering the Ngu Hoa forest, no outsiders have cut any trees in our area. You never see boats from Mai Hoa, in Ha Tinh, loaded with wood on the Rao Tro river any more.

- Families that have forest plots close together

confer with each other to protect the land, so the village atmosphere is improved and strengthened.

- To now, many families in villages 2,3 and 5

have worked together to clear and trim forest, and have begun small farm plots. Mr Dong, Thanh and Tinh have invested in fruit seedlings and planned pilot models, in the hope of seeing good results in a few years.

In sum, the land and forest allocation

programme was timely and suitable with the aspirations of Ngu Hoa people, and is a big step in raising awareness towards a new way of earning a living. Up to now we can assert that the forest of Ngu Hoa is recuperating day by day. The life of the people is improving gradually. And most of all the belief of the people is that tomorrow will be better. People can have confidence and take the initiative in developing their land.

Quang Binh October 10, 2000 Chairman of Ngu Hoa commune (signed) Nguyen Huu Lai



Uniting gender and culture

TEW’s goal is to overcome the potential contradiction in trying to strengthen both traditional culture and women’s roles, at the same time. The TEW project with Sinh Mun women like Vi Thi Khau, above, was the first chance for staff to put their ideas into effect.

F or TEW, there is a contradiction which must be solved for

balanced development to take place: traditional culture is the b a s i s f o r c o m m u n i t y development, but it can also be an obstacle to gender equality. The TEW strategy is to find a balance between the two. We cannot afford to concentrate only on community rights, or only on individual rights. Furthermore, we have to work towards both at the same time. How to accomplish this?

First, it is necessary to look closely at traditional cultures and small communities. In all communities, there are different groups, and these groups have different needs. Divisions involving clan, family, age, wealth, religion and gender can

all create different needs, and possible conflicts. As a rule, there will always be some disagreement over the values of a community or culture – what the values represent, and who should define or control them.

Devel opm en t in vol ves creating solutions for different groups, based on their practical and strategic needs. In this process, individual needs are important as well as community needs. For example, individuals should have the right to choose, the right to an education, and the right to vote. If communities do not offer all of their members these opportunities, then people can be given opportunities by outsiders.

This has been the reality for many years in Vietnam – outsiders, usually the state, have

changed gender relations t h r ou g h p o l i c i e s l i k e r eset t l em en t and f i xed cultivation, and universal education. TEW is therefore another outside influence, one t h a t a i m s t o p r ov i d e opportunities for women to take more control of their lives.

It is our believe that giving women opportunities does not mean destroying or even damaging traditional culture. Giving women opportunities allows both women and men to improve their lives, using their own efforts, and this can in fact improve gender relations within a community. This has been the T E W e x p e r i e n c e wi t h community development since 1994. In areas where women have made major strides forward, men recognise and

TEW’s approach to working with women


Sinh Mun women coordinators in 1994, and the project has helped to completely turn around the desperate situation the Sinh Mun people faced. ~

examples of how this approach can be implemented is in the Sinh Mun community of Son La province. TEW began working with Bo Ngoi village and 17

The above diagram summarises the approach taken by TEW staff. Many projects support visible elements of minority culture like weaving and embroidery — but there are many other ways of empowering women to expand their role in the community.

Development

Culture Gender

Empowerment of ethnic minority communities based on cultural values.

Empowerment of women based on gender equality.

Individual rights Community rights

TEW strategy

appreciate the value of these developments.

Nonetheless, TEW needs a very clear strategy in how to involve women in development activities, in communities where they do not normally engage in public events. The first step is that all TEW staff must be sensitive to gender issues, in all working situations. Other steps are: Know the culture. Know women’s needs and

ideas. Start with activities the

women are already interested in. Start on the village level. Involve women in project

management boards. Involve women in key

fa r m er n et wor k i n g by: increasing confidence at village level; involving women in specific networks related to their interests; and involving women in national key farmer network.

These steps are the basis for TEW’s approach to community development in ethnic minority communities. They will help to ensure that women’s confidence and knowledge can progress until they can take control of their own lives.

One of the most successful



First steps in Bo Ngoi village

T EW began working with the Sinh Mun people f o l l o w i n g t h e

organisation’s first project with the Dao community of Ba Vi, near Hanoi.

The TEW director wanted to find the poorest and most marginalised community to test her approach to working with ethnic minorities. TEW chose to work with the Sinh Mun people, who live in a very remote area of Son La, near the Lao border. The Sinh Mun live largely by hunting and gathering products from the forest, and in Son La forest resources are almost exhausted.

The Sinh Mun were resettled beginning in 1985, but when

TEW staff met the Sinh Mun villagers in 1994, their situation was still desperate and conditions worsening, partly as a result of the market economy.

The village of Bo Ngoi has 11 families. In 1985 they were moved from their original homes in Cuon Hut village to the valley of Bo Ngoi. The valley covers 25 ha and the land is suitable for wet rice cultivation as well as other short-term crops.

After two years of living in the valley, a group of Kinh (Vietnamese) from the crowded lowland province of Hai Duong arrived in the area. They settled in the valley and took about two-thirds of the land used by the

Sinh Mun. The Sinh Mun were reduced to scavenging in the forest for yams. They exchanged some of the forest products they gathered with the Vietnamese and other outsiders. Despite the government programme that began in 1985, by 1994 Bo Ngoi was one of the poorest of the Sinh Mun villages in Son La.

Bo Ngoi is about 5 km from the centre of Phieng Khoai commune, and about 50 km from the centre of Yen Chau district. TEW chose Bo Ngoi as the site for a pilot model because it was so poor, and because it was in the middle of the commune so it was a good location for other Sinh Mun villages to come and study.

TEW’s objectives for the pilot model were to contribute to improving the living conditions of the villagers;

Son La province officials told TEW not to work with the Sinh Mun ‘because they are too poor.’ This was just the challenge TEW was looking for.

The Sinh Mun village of Bo Ngoi was the first major TEW project site


Vi Thi Mun was one of the most active coordinators.

create opportunit ies for villagers, particularly women, to increase their awareness of household, community and natural resource management; and to expand the model to the other Sinh Mun villages of Phieng Khoai commune.

TEW at this time was a very small organisation with only a few staff. The director’s goal was to use her experience from working with the Dao community of Ba Vi, near Hanoi, to build a pilot model in a much more remote location. Several sources of funding were explored, and in the end TEW decided to work with IWDA, the International Women’s Development Agency, of Australia. IWDA representative Di Kilsby travelled to Bo Ngoi village on several occasions.

In working with the Sinh Mun community, TEW decided to use a training-of-trainers approach that would rely on key farmers chosen by the community. These farmers would join together in a network and receive training in specific areas. The network of key farmers would then be responsible for retraining all members of the community.

From the key farmer network, several women were chosen to act as coordinators. Their role was to help manage activities and oversee the work done by the key farmers. Women were chosen to be coordinators so that TEW could be certain that women benefited from the pilot model.

A final strategy was to rely heavily on the strong points of the Bo Ngoi villagers and Sinh Mun culture in general, to support the activities and help ensure long-term success.

A PRA research trip was held to discover the needs of the community. Villagers were invited to analyse the reasons for their problems, and the impact problems had on their

material and spiritual lives. Together with project staff, the villagers discussed solutions and built an action plan to tackle their problems.

The villagers appreciated the training methods employed for the pilot model because they were based on practical learning. Also, the training was led by the village elder and village leader, in addition to the key farmers. The village elder could ensure that all villagers participated, including the women.

Another method employed was letting farmers learn from other farmers. When the Sinh Mun expressed an interest in developing their knowledge of

herbal medicine, TEW arranged a study tour to the Dao village of Yen Son in Ba Vi, Ha Tay province. In addition to herbal medicine, the Sinh Mun villagers learned about sloping l a n d c u l t i v a t i o n a n d agroforestry at a pilot model in Ba Vi that the TEW director helped set up in the early 1990s.

Free market changes

The Sinh Mun people were most vulnerable when the free m a r k e t c h a n g e d t h e i r relationship with outsiders. The villagers had little experience buying and selling, so it was easy for Kinh outsiders to take advantage of them. A TEW



Economic changes were secondary to a leap in confidence for almost all the women in the village.

report explains the predicament of the villagers:

“Sinh Mu people say they like going into the forest to earn a living because when they lived next to the Kinh migrants, they felt inferior. They lacked self-confidence when meeting outsiders. When they go into the forest, the Sinh Mun people feel at ease, because they are surrounded by their own kind. Neighbours and relatives face difficulties and solve problems together. They feel at peace, even though they only eat yams and exchange a few forest products with outsiders – even though in 1993 they had to exchange 50 kg of corn to get one small package of MSG.”

Economic impacts

One of the components of the project was training for the women in how to use sewing m a ch in es . T wo se wi n g machines were purchased, and a teacher was hired and brought to the village to train the women. The total cost of the machines and training course, including travel and salaries, was 3.25 million dong.

Previously, the women bought clothes at the market at a price of 100,000 dong for a women’s outfit (shirt and sarong). By purchasing fabric and using the two machines provided by the project, the women save 15,500 dong per outfit. There are thirty women in the village, who go through about two outfits per year. This means that 930,000 dong is saved every year by the village women if they sew their own clothes.

At this rate, the total cost of the machines and training course was paid off after less than four years. Although this does not include the opportunity cost of labour, the women say they sew only at times when they are not otherwise occupied.

Similarly, the total cost of a course to teach the women how to make tofu was 2.38 million dong. The cost of 5 kg of soy, making the tofu and travelling to market is 42,500 dong. The tofu can be sold for 50,000 dong, for a profit of 7,500 dong.

Six families can process a total of 72 kg of soy every month, which can be sold for 108,000 dong. At this rate, the cost of the training course and machinery was paid off after less than two years.

An even greater economic return was gained from the household gardens growing plum trees. Each household garden is now producing 800 kg

of fruit yearly, on average, for an income of 1.6 million dong.

O n e o f t h e f e m a l e coordinators, Vi Thi Khau, did a n e c on om i c a n a l ys i s comparing her household income in 1994, the year the project started, and 1998. In 1994, Khau earned most of her income from corn, rice, cu dong, bi ngo and y di. Her income was 4.17 million dong for the year. By 1998, Khau was also earning money from plums, ducks, cattle, tofu, and several other sources. Her income had risen to 12.96 million dong, an increase of almost 9 million. Her household income had tripled in four years.


Sinh Mun women and commune Women’s Union staff discuss gender concepts at a TEW workshop. Training in gender and credit was a key component of the project.

IWDA representative Di Kilsby attends a meeting in Bo Ngoi. Di helped the

Although not all families in Bo Ngoi village had this type of success, village life changed a great deal in economic terms. The number of households with enough to eat, or a lack of food for only one or two months per year, increased from four to 12. The number of households lacking food for 3 or more months per year dropped from eight to two (there were 14 households in the village by the time the project ended, up from 12 at the beginning).

However, economic changes were only the start. Land rights and the establishment of a community forest area was equally important in raising people’s confidence and s t r e n g t h e n i n g c u l t u r e . Community regulations were set up on the use of natural resources, and better knowledge of the law and their rights has allowed the Sinh Mun people to protect their land from encroachment.

The confidence the women gained has allowed them to manage activities themselves, and after the original three-year project ended, TEW provided credit for the women to continue to develop their household economies. The coordinators manage this credit project, and send regular reports to TEW. Now, the Sinh Mun coordinators can host study tours to demonstrate how they were able to develop so quickly.

One such study tour included development workers and government staff from Phong Saly province in Lao, who want to continue learning from the Sinh Mun – by bringing Lao farmers to Son La province to learn first hand from the women. ~

Sinh Mun women and TEW staff review project activities with commune staff.



Fresh cut: evidence of illegal logging near On Oc village.

Who’s forest is it? Traditional leaders and state forest policy square off in highland Vietnam

Update story

I n the eyes of the Vietnamese government, Hm on g p e op l e a r e

considered the most difficult to resettle. The government thinks it is very difficult to stop the Hmong from shifting cultivation and growing opium. A lot of effort is made to get the Hmong to change their traditional practices.

But the government is not always right about the Hmong and their relationship with the forest.

One Hmong community in Yen Chau district of Son La province has closely followed the government’s policy of protecting the rare samu forest on their mountain. The two Hmong villages of On Oc and Pa Khom, with about 600 people in all, followed Ho Chi Minh during the revolution, and they have always placed great faith in the Vietnamese government. In protecting the forest, they are also following their ancestors, who handed down a strong tradition of protecting the forest.

In 1954, soon after the French were overthrown, the village elders told the young people of the village to care for the forest, both because the nation demanded it and because the forest supported them.

In 1959, the government set up cooperatives in Yen Chau

district. In Muong Lum commune, where the Hmong villages are located, two cooperatives were established. One was for the Thai villages in the commune, and the other for the Hmong. Each cooperative had an area of samu forest to protect. The border between the two forest areas was very stable until 1975, and the district government was very pleased with how the Thai and Hmong were caring for forest.

In the 1980’s, the Thai group – much more numerous than the Hmong – started to cut timber. Now the forest in their area is gone except for some small regeneration plots. But the forest under the care of the Hmong of On Oc and Pa Khom is still there.

New threats emerge

In 1997, a forestry official came to the village to measure the

samu forest; to make a border for the area already protected by the Hmong. The forester said there was a change and now the district army would protect the forest.

Vu Lao Lenh, the traditional leader in On Oc village, asked who had decided this change in policy.

The forester said he was following a 1994 decision of the central army of Vietnam, which stated that army units should protect valuable forests. Lenh was very surprised and asked why no one had informed the villagers first. The official just said the district or commune should have informed them already. Lenh tried to keep a smile on his face, but he could not accept what the man was saying.

After a few days, the forestry official brought a team and marked the boundary of the forest with posts. Now the samu

On January 1, 2001, villagers from On Oc caught a truck loaded with wood on the road near their village.


Samu planks left lying in the forest.

Villagers unload the wood the next morning. Commune authorities allowed another logging team to take the wood away, with no explanation given.

Village leaders confiscate a truck loaded with wood in the middle of the night.

forest was under the protection of the district army. Lenh waited for someone to explain the new policy and why the forest cared for by the Hmong now belonged to someone else.

Lenh also kept track of whether the army was patrolling to protect the forest, but they never came.

TEW became involved in 1997-98, when we tried to help the district allocate forest and cultivation land for individual households. The district refused to allocate forest land, but they did allocate cultivation land. They said the forest already belonged to the army.

In 1998, Dat Viet company sent a man to On Oc village, to ask the villagers to cut samu wood in exchange for a new road. TEW asked the villagers to refuse the company logging road, and then TEW found support for the villagers to build their own road. This project was very successful, and the villagers built and managed their own road (this project is described in the first issue of Existence).

Then, in 1999, the district cancelled all the land use certificates allocated with TEW support. They said the certificates ‘were wrong’ without explaining why.

After this, in 2000, the vice-chairman of the province issued a decision to allow the Mai Son forest enterprise to remove dead samu wood from the forest. This opened the door for logging companies to cut fresh samu trees, then leave it in the forest to dry until it looked dead.

Lenh could not accept this, so he brought the situation to the attention of the National Assembly in Hanoi. Lenh met Mr Cu Hoa Van of the National Assembly’s committee for ethnic minorities. Van called the party leader of Son La province and the head of the Son La



The next to go?: Axe wounds on this tree indicate the loggers plan to come

forestry department. Van told them to stop the cutting immediately. This worked at first, and no more logs were cut.

But on January 1, 2001, the village forest protection team from On Oc and Pa Khom, in the middle of the night, caught a truck loaded with timber on the road leading to their village. They brought the truck back to one of the villages. They discovered the truck had papers from the forestry department of the district, but the papers had expired the previous September. The loggers were trying to use old papers to cut timber again.

The villagers confiscated the samu planks and kept them in their village. Some days later the chairman of the commune allowed another team to come to the village and take the wood away, with no explanation given to the villagers.

Villagers role ignored

The above situation indicates that the working system of the government at the commune, district and province level, along with logging companies, does not have the same attitude towards forest protection as the Hmong people of On Oc and Pa Khom. The farmers want to care for the forest because they understand their life – physical and spiritual – depends on it. The local government levels, on the other hand, take advantage of central policies to offer opportunities for logging companies to destroy the forest.

The villagers are hurt by this behaviour because they trust the government and the advice of their ancestors: although poor, they have cared for the forest for a very long time. Now, in only a few months, they see a great deal of forest destroyed and taken away, under what is clearly collusion between local government offices and logging companies. Now, who knows

exactly what the Hmong farmers in Muong Lum are thinking. It is clear they want to know why the district army can take their forest, ignore it, and then give it away to others to cut down. The farmers know the army receives money from the government to protect the forest, along with awards and recognition for a job well done – when in fact they do nothing and it is the farmers who protect the trees.

Clearly, these are problems that policy makers must solve immediately. It also indicates that many people need to change their thinking about the

link between Hmong people and the forest.

The government has had a resettlement policy for 30 years, but the Hmong of On Oc and Pa Khom have not needed this type of policy interrupting their lives. They know better than anyone else how to live sustainable in their environment. Help must arrive for the farmers to get back the forest, so they can protect it for the country, and for their lives. The Hmong people and the forest are calling for an answer, so they can both survive. ~


TEW and CIRD project areas

Lao Cai province (Hmong ethnic group)

Son La province (Hmong, Sinh Mun and Thai ethnic groups)

CIRD: Quang Binh province (Ma Lieng, Ruc, Sach, Khua, Arem, Ma Coong, May and Kinh ethnic groups)

Dak Lak province (Mnong and Ede ethnic groups)

Soc Trang and Ninh Thuan provinces (Kinh and Khmer ethnic groups)

Ha Tay province (Dao ethnic group)

TEW (Towards Ethnic Women) A4 Lang Khoa Hoc Ngoc Khanh, Ba Dinh, Ha Noi, Viet Nam, tel (84-4) 771-5690, fax (84-4) 771-5691 email: [email protected] CIRD (the Centre for Indigenous Knowledge Research and Development) Dong Le, Tuyen Hoa district, Quang Binh, Viet Nam, tel (84-52) 844-227, email: [email protected]

VIET NAM

Nghe An province (Thai ethnic group)

Case study_Existence: Culture, ecology and community development in Vietnam

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