Cari Coe 1
Many scholars argue that private property rights to land encourage farmers to
invest in their land and use natural resources sustainably. Yet much remains to be
understood about how political processes affect land use rights allocation and the
establishment of private property rights. In an effort to combat rapid deforestation and
alleviate poverty in the mountainous regions, Vietnam has been allocating forest land to
households, granting them various forms of use rights over this land. The conditions
associated with these property rights are determined by land use planning. Land use
planning and the allocation of use rights are, in turn, political processes, the details of
which are devolved to local government to manage. This study asks whether the
localization of these processes results in inequities in the allocation of agricultural land
and forest land use rights in Vietnam.
The problems of forest protection and poverty alleviation in Vietnam are deeply
intertwined. Forest coverage in the country has declined an estimated 29% over the past
sixty years (World Bank 2005). Furthermore, some of the poorest regions in the country
are the mountainous forest regions, inhabited by ethnic minorities who have long been
dependent on the use of forest land and resources, using shifting swidden cultivation
methods to convert fertile forest land for agricultural production, but also selling wood
from the forest and using forest products for subsistence. 66% of the land in Vietnam’s
poorest communes is classified as forest land (Ministry of Planning and Investment 2004,
p. 5). To address these dual problems of forest decline and persistent poverty, the central
government has taken a three-pronged approach under the Five Million Hectare
Reforestation Program, the “Stable Production, Stable Settlement” Program and the 2003
Land Law, by: (1) establishing “special use” forests in the form of national parks where
Convention