Browsing by Subject "Household"

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A microeconomic analysis of household forest plantation in the northern uplands of Vietnam : contributions to payments for environmental services policy
(2014) Manasboonphempool, Areeya; Zeller, Manfred
It is uncontested that forests are imperative for environmental conservation and economic development. Benefits from forests are immense and multidimensional: Forests can support local livelihoods, assist poverty alleviation, and provide environmental services for local communities and greater society. Over the past 50 years, about half of the worlds original forest cover has been lost. Vietnam is among the countries where forest degradation is a serious issue. Several measures have been implemented to alleviate forest degradation, including forest land allocation and forest plantation programs. The current and growing international interest of civil society and governments in the acknowledgement of forest environmental services has become mainstream: Vietnam is among several countries who appreciate the need for payment or compensation to local communities for forest values through the payment for environmental services (PES) mechanism. Since 2010, Vietnam has officially introduced a payments for forest environmental services (PFES) scheme to pursue conservation and development goals. However, there is still a lack of knowledge for farmers preferences for policy design and implementation. In spite of a number of studies examining the impacts of forest policies in northern Vietnam, there is limited research on incentive and forest management at the household level. Such an analysis would provide insightful information and entail implications for PES policy, especially in terms of effective participation and cost efficiency. This dissertation attempts to fill this research gap by examining farmers behavior on forest management and their experiences with forest policies that are necessary for determining effective incentives that can bring about changes in behavior related to forest conservation practice in a mountainous area. The research is based on two survey rounds of 300 representative households in Da Bac district, located in the upstream area of the Hoa Binh reservoir in the northwestern region of Vietnam. As previous afforestation programs are based on a top-down approach, this dissertation contributes to the limited research on the potential demand for and farmers preferences in forest management. The analysis provides policy implications for a PES scheme where voluntary participation and cost efficiency are crucial for its success. This dissertation also contributes to a small but growing body of literature on choice experiment application to the field of forest conservation schemes in developing countries. In addition, the analysis of Transaction Costs (TCs) borne by households under the forest management scheme can contribute to the limited number of studies that have empirically analyzed private TCs, particularly in developing countries. The results of our research underline the inadequacy of previous forest plantation support and recommend that when land is limited, higher financial incentives are needed to make forest conservation attractive in a PES scheme. Depending on the contract, there exists a potential demand for forest conservation with a small subsidy or even without a subsidy if extra land is allocated. This suggests that policymakers should integrate land allocation into PES policies to obtain better cost efficiency. As the results indicate that households have different degrees of willingness to participate in forest conservation programs, we recommend that policies target PES campaigns to households who have less interest in forest conservation, such as households with livelihoods that depend mainly on agricultural production, who have not previously joined the forest programs either due to their ineligibility or distrust in local government authorities, and who have limited market access due to poor road conditions. In addition, given that the security of forests influences the decision to plant forest, strengthening monitoring mechanism or introducing insurance to reduce the risk of plantation failure is recommended as another option to promote participation. This dissertation reveals that the amount of incentives that farmers are willing to accept to plant and conserve forest instead of engaging in farming activities is higher than previous subsidies. In mountainous areas where ethnic minorities still live in poverty, a higher subsidy is expected to achieve both environmental conservation and poverty alleviation outcomes. Nevertheless, a critical question arises as to whether a higher subsidy can lead to sustainable household forest management. This question should be addressed by future research by examining longitudinal data on household livelihood and forest management under a PES scheme. It has not been possible to empirically measure TCs of farmers engaged in community-based forest management where such information would provide interesting results on this matter. The implications on this study could be developed further by expanding the survey and gathering data from participants of community-based forest management. Further research on the comparison of TCs associated with community and individual management is recommended to provide information to policymakers and researchers.
Sharing forest resources in the Northern Uplands of Vietnam : an institutional analysis
(2016) Tran, Thi Thu Huong; Zeller, Manfred
After decades of policies favoring centralization, Vietnam has been moving toward decentralization in the forestry sector since the 1990s. This shift began with the provision of incentives for allocating and/or leasing forest and forest land to state- and non-state stakeholders for long-term management. Along with forest land allocation, the government has implemented various nationwide reforestation, afforestation, and forest protection programs. These programs are the Greening the Barren Hills Program (known as Program 327) from 1992 to 1998, the Five Million Hectare Reforestation Program (known as Program 661) from 1998 to 2010, the Program 661’s successor - the Plan for Forest Protection and Development from 2011 to 2020, and the Payments for Forest Environmental Services Program (PFES) from 2011 to today. The goal of these programs is to provide incentives to encourage farmers to participate in forest conservation activities. To date, there is limited research using the institutional approach on incentives and on the implementation of decentralization programs. There is also a lack of research on innovative ways to improve administrative and transaction cost aspects of these programs. A greater understanding of how these programs have been implemented at local levels, how they affect local forest management efforts, and the role of stakeholders is crucial to provide insights and policy recommendations for future forest conservation policies. This dissertation aims to fill this research gap by analyzing the implementation of current national forestry policies through an institutional approach and by proposing the acknowledgment of the role of state bodies, namely, state forest enterprises (SFEs), as implementing agencies at local levels under the Payments for Forest Environmental Services Program. This research is based on data collected from individual in-depth interviews and focus group discussions in 2012 and 2014 in Da Bac district, Hoa Binh province in northwestern Vietnam. Despite the important role of the transaction cost analysis for assessing the effectiveness of institutional arrangements within natural resource management, this type of analysis is often neglected in policy analysis. Therefore, this study’s analysis of transaction costs borne by participating farmers in Program 661 contributes to the small handful of empirical studies on private TCs associated with natural resource management activities. Moreover, proposing SFEs to function as intermediaries in the implementation of the PFES Program contributes to the limited number of studies on innovative ways to reduce transaction costs of managing this program. In addition, the dissertation contributes empirical evidence on the institutional analysis of the PFES scheme. This topic has rarely been studied and the inclusion of institutional interplay is the least researched area in the literature. As Vietnam is the first country in the region to initiate the PFES scheme nationwide, the lessons learned from the design of the PFES scheme and from its implementation in the field are valuable to other developing countries with similar conditions. Future research should evaluate national forestry policies by examining public transaction costs faced by implementing agencies. This will allow for a more comprehensive understanding of the effectiveness of forestry policies and programs and thus help the development of future policies and programs.