Contribution of Forestry to Poverty Alleviation - APFNet

FLA, which grants land use right certificates to households and supports forest plantation both financially
and technically, provided opportunities to local people to change their status from employees to owners
of their own forest land. This created employment and increased the income of local people over the
past years. Monitoring and evaluation were carried out in some projects and Program 661 showed that
many areas were successful in developing small forestry models. These are areas where people actively
participate in family forestry models, areas with market access, or areas with a clearly planned forestry
land fund. It should be noted that up to now there is no official evaluation in terms of contribution to
poverty alleviation in the entire country.
Village industries
There are no data available on the number of people working in the timber primary production and
processing at the local level. Small-scale processing in areas with forestry potential is not yet developed
and therefore did not contribute to poverty reduction. In some communes, there are small timbercutting
shops with most of their activities related to illegal logging. A number of local people who live
near rich natural forests, such as the central highlands and south central Viet Nam are engaged in this
activity. Small-scale timber-processing activities are often located in populated areas, such as the center
of districts and communes, towns, or craft villages in the river deltas. Granting certificates to those
shops or the management of their activities was not a focus.
Non-wood forest products (NWFPs)
Many of the rural poor in Viet Nam live in remote forested areas and depend on forest resources for a
portion of their livelihoods. This is especially true of the country’s ethnic minorities who mostly belong
to the “poorest of the poor.” It is estimated that
the 24 million people residing in the mountainous
areas are dependent on NWFPs (MARD 2006).
These NWFPs include bamboo, bamboo shoots,
rattan, medicinal plants, and animals to meet their
basic needs, thus contributing to poverty alleviation
despite the high rate of forest conversion and
biodiversity loss in most of the country (Sunderlin
2004).
Despite the importance of NWFPs to local people,
especially the rural poor, there is insufficient
statistical data and officially published figures from
the GSO as well as of the Directorate of Forestry
on the volume of NWFPs harvested, processed
and consumed domestically and exported (MARD
2010). According to the General Department of
Customs, the total NWFPs export turnover value
in 2005-2009 was over US$ 900 million, of which
the value of bamboo and rattan products accounted
for 70%. The percentage of women who were
engaged in harvesting of NWFPs was 70% (Hoang
2006). It should be noted that medicinal plants of
high potential do not receive relevant development
support, although Viet Nam spends a lot of money
to import oriental medicines from China. The
figure shows that the growth of export turnover
value over the last five years only met 15-20% of
the annual growth target as indicated in the NWFP
Development Strategy for 2006-2020 (MARD
2010). It is expected to grow annually 10-15% on
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Medicinal plants collected from the forests are still
popularly used as part of the health care practices of
the people, especially in upland villages.
Pedro Walpole