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119 contract as long as the following current legal regulations and policies have
been enforced: keeping the forest under the effective management and
utilization of the village community; a water protection forest directly providing common benefit to the community; a forest situated at the boundary area
between villages, communes or districts that cannot be allocated to organizations, households, or individuals. The area is allocated to the village
community as a whole to ensure that it provides benefits to the community.
3. The community receives the following rights as participants in forest management as stipulated in legal regulations: f
orest use entitlement in a long term and stable way suitable for the forest allocation tenure ratified;
ability to exploit and use forest products and other forest resources for public and domestic purposes of the community; freedom to organize forestry-
agriculture-fisheries production; entitlement to enjoy the working and investment outputs from the allocated forest area; entitlement and access
to guidance on techniques and support in finance in accordance with the state’s policy to protect and develop forests; entitlement to benefits brought
about by public structures on forest protection and rehabilitation; and lastly, the right to be compensated for outputs from working on and investing in
forest protection and development in case the state reclaims the allocated forests.
4. Communities participating in forest management have the following obligations: to develop and implement the conventions of forest protection
and development; to organize forest protection and management and to
periodically report to the authorized state agency on forest resource progress and relevant activities; to undertake financial and other liabilities as regulated
in the law; to hand over the forest once the state reclaims the forest or at the end of forest utilization tenure; to prevent division of the forest into parcels
used amongst the village population, nor to transfer, make concessions, offer, lease, mortgage, guarantee or contribute the allocated forest value or
forest use right value as business capital.
3. Current Institutional Arrangements
Community forestry management consists of the following 11 steps: 1
Planning for community forest protection and development; 2
Allocating land and forest to communities; 3
Formulating plans for community forest protection and development; 4
Setting up the community forest management formmodality; 5
Developing conventions on community forest protection; 6
Implementing plans for forest protection and development; 7
Setting the main procedures for forest products exploitation from community forests;
8 Establishing procedures for timber harvesting for use in house building
from community forests; 9
Developing human resources; 10 Developing a village forest protection and development fund; and
11 Monitoring and evaluating.
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VIETNAM
The six main groups of stakeholders or institutions that collaborate with one another to implement the community forestry activities as shown in annex 2 are listed
below.
•
Village community: In Vietnam the village or hamlet is not an administrative
unit, but is instead defined as a human-geographical unit. A village community is not a state organization, however the state recognizes this traditional
organization consisting of village leader, village eldest leader, households and individuals, village forest management board, party organizations and
public organizations, groups of households, groups of interest or public organization for forest protection, and village agro-forestry extension staff,
etc.
•
Commune forestry organization: The commune forestry board is set up
at several local areas under the technical direction of the District Forest Protection Agency with the aim of implementing duties related to community
forest management such as propagating law and policy, to monitor development of forest resources, to provide guidance on forest protection
and fire control, to advise and support the commune level People’s Committee on land and forest allocation, to manage forests and apply various
measures to prevent and deal with violence in forests.
•
Authorities at provincial, district and commune levels: Authorities have
the role of state management of forestry according to Decision No. 245 1998QD-TTg dated 21 December 1998 as issued by the Prime Minister
regarding the implementation of the State management of forests and forestry land at all levels. Eight contents of the State management of forestry at the
commune level, including CF are also mentioned explicitly in Decision 245.
•
Professional agencies affecting forestry at the provincial and district levels:
Provincial agencies, such as the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development DARD, the Provincial Department of Forest Protection FPD,
or agencies at the district level such as Sub-DARD and Sub-FPD are responsible for supporting, guiding and encouraging communities to manage
forests.
•
State forestry organizations: State forest enterprises, special-use forest
and protection forest management boards are in charge of making the contracts for forest allocation to communities, for technical consultancy and
support, and investing capital for forest development. State organizations of forestry extension and technology transfer such as centers for agricultural
and forestry extension, and research and training organizations are to provide the supporting services of training, forestry extension and technical transfer.
•
Non-State forestry organizations: International and non-governmental
projects and programs, national associations, consulting organizations, etc. are to provide supporting services, to sign contracts for training, forestry
extension and technology transfer.
In principle, the impact of the State in exercising its role in community forest management in Vietnam is expressed in the following four points.
1. The State just creates a legal corridor but it is not going to show deep intervention in specific decisions on forest protection, development and
utilization by communities, which is represented explicitly in the management of village or hamlet forests managed by local tradition.
Nguyen, Nguyen Kuester
121 2. The State allocates land and forests to communities and provides them with
financial and technical support to manage, protect, zone for regeneration, plant, exploit and utilize forests.
3. The State makes contracts for forest protection, plantation and zoning for regeneration to communities through state agencies. The community serves
as an employee who gets payment and a portion of outputs from contracted forestland in-line with their working time and efforts.
4. The State is responsible for coordinating and creating favorable conditions for other organizations to provide supporting services, to make contracts for
training, forestry extension and technology transfer to the communities managing forests.
In addition to the above official state CF management organizations, there are various management regulations emanating from various communities depending on
their local traditional customs. The village eldest leader is traditionally honored by the community to play an important role in dealing with social relationships within the
community, including management of forestry activities. Groups of community members within one family also take essential roles in the formulation of the community forests
of the family. Village convention, regulations and indigenous knowledge create many positive aspects in forest management. The Vietnamese State gradually recognizes
and encourages conservation and development by traditional institutions and activities for community management purposes in general, and for community forest
management purposes in particular.
4. Current Best Practice
