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ID: 25323Added: 2003-01-17 10:53Modified: 2004-11-09 12:42Refreshed: 2010-03-07 16:30 
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Document(s) 6 of 10
Tuyen Quang province (Figure 5) is located northwest of Hanoi and of the Red River delta, also known as the Tonkin Delta. Roughly rectangular, the province spreads over some 130 km from south to north, and its east–west width varies between 27 and 63 km (Figure 6). It actually belongs to the foothills of the Northern Highlands (the latter forming a broad crescent around the Tonkin Delta), and its own landforms rise, in a steplike manner, away from the lowlands (Figure 7). Whereas the southern portion of the province is made up of narrow river basins and of ranges of hills, most of which are below 300 m above sea level (asl), the average altitude rises in the northern portion, particularly in Chiem Hoa and Na Hang districts. Here, slopes are steeper, with several ranges reaching over 1400 m asl. The two highest summits, rising to about 1 600 m asl, are located in Chiem Hoa district and in Son Duong district, near the neighbouring provinces of Vinh Phu to the south and Bac Thai to the east (see Figures 5 and 7). In the southern part of the province, about 100 km away from Hanoi as the crow flies, is the provincial capital, also bearing the name of Tuyen Quang. This town is at an altitude of less than 100 m asl. From Hanoi, it can be reached by road in less than 5 h. This small town lies along the right bank of the Lo River (Song Lo), which originates in the northern neighbouring province of Ha Giang, near the Chinese border. A tributary to the Red River (which it joins farther south), the Lo River itself receives, north of Tuyen Quang and on its left flank, the waters of the Gam River (Song Gam). The valleys of these two rivers — the Lo and the Gam — represent the two major corridors running across the province, along a predominantly longitudinal axis. According to the 1989 census, Tuyen Quang province held some 565 000 inhabitants. Given its surface area of 5900 km2, its population density stood at nearly 100 inhabitants/km2 (see Table 3). It was estimated that, by 1997, its population would reach 660 000 people; and its density, about 110 inhabitants/km2. This would still be largely below the national average of about 235 habitants/km2. But, by 1992, even with a relatively low population density and a quite adequate annual rainfall (averaging between 1 400 and 2 000 mm), the province's natural forest, both rain forest and monsoon forest, covered only 7.2% of the province's territory (Figure 8; Table 5).13 Figure 5. Tuyen Quang province and its region since 1991. Changes in land useMore than 50 years ago, P. Maurand, a French forestry engineer, put together a vegetation map of Indochina (Maurand 1943). Although it provides only very generalized information and does not allow for precise assessment of any specific forest type, it has nevertheless become a classic and basic reference on the forests of the Indochinese peninsula. According to the information presented on that map, some 90% of Tuyen Quang province was still covered with forest in 1943.14 The map is reproduced here as an inset in Figure 8 for reference and heuristic purposes only, given that the land-use categories on which it was based (rich forest; average or poor forest; other) cannot be easily compared with those that have since been relied on. But this map does have the merit of, first, providing a striking illustration of the predominance of the overall forest cover in 1943 and, second, allowing for a partial comparison with maps made for 1975 and 1992, which are also presented in Figure 8, but at a better scale.15The 1975 mapThe 1975 map (see Figure 8) clearly shows that, as in 1943, the major agricultural areas were in the southern portion of the province, in the less mountainous Son Duong and Yen Son districts. (This, however, assumes that on the 1943 map the category "other" was referring first and foremost to agricultural land use.) An even more striking feature revealed by a comparison of the two maps is the magnitude of the retreat of the forest. By 1975, the large closed forests, whether rain or monsoon forests, covered barely 12% of the territory; bamboo forests, a degraded form of the former, covered about 16% (see Table 5).16 Figure 8. Tuyen Quang: changes in land use, 1975-92.Source: Maurand (1943); Forest Inventory and Planning Institute, Hanoi, 1994.
The 1975 map also shows that a third and apparently new feature — a new category of "land use," so to speak — had become predominant. This new category, applicable to more than 65% of the province, actually refers to denuded or barren lands, for it seems quite probable that, in this case, the "other" category does refer to such lands.17 These basically correspond to areas cleared of their forest cover in such a way that regrowth appears most unlikely. They may have been sites of ephemeral cultivation that have been totally abandoned because of a rapid decrease in soil fertility. Overall, within the province, the most pronounced differences in land use among the various districts are in the categories of cultivated land and forest (including bamboo forest). Permanent cropland appears essentially confined, as I have already mentioned, to the southern portion of the province, whereas the large closed forest is more characteristic of the northern districts and is still nearly twice as widespread (12% versus 6.5%). Although bamboo forest is nearly absent from Na Hang district, it is well represented throughout the other major districts. The 1992 mapSeveral meaningful phenomena and processes are revealed by a comparison of the 1992 map with the 1975 one (seeFigure 8). First, the area devoted to agriculture has noticeably increased, from 6.5% to almost 18% of total land use (see Table 5). Agricultural expansion occurred in all districts, but with a particularly striking intensity (from about 2% to almost 19%) in Chiem Hoa, although this is one of the more hilly and mountainous districts. Second, bamboo forests in several districts have been replaced by other forms of land use, particularly agriculture but also barren land. Third, barren lands have remained quite predominant, still accounting in 1992 for 64.5% of total land use. However, their actual distribution throughout the province seems to shift constantly. Fourth, although in some places the large closed forests seem to have made some gains, overall they have continued to lose ground. The most important losses occurred in the most mountainous district, Na Hang, which is also the most northerly. Fifth, the routes of agricultural expansion are quite evident from Figures 7 and 8, which show that such expansion occurs initially in the river basins and along the slopes of the lower foothills, as in the centre of Ham Yen. Sixth, on both the 1975 and 1992 maps, the land-use category "plantation" is barely represented. Changes in the population and its distributionOver three decades, between 1960 and 1989, the province's population nearly quadrupled, increasing from about 154 206 to some 565 023 inhabitants (Table 6). This growth seems to have been sustained throughout the entire period, at least if it is broken down into two phases: 1960–75 and 1975–89. All districts were involved, in nearly equivalent fashion, with some minor differences.First, the growth rate for the 1960 — 75 phase was slightly stronger, possibly because people fleeing the US bombing of the Red River delta were forced to migrate into the less industrialized peripheral and mountainous regions. Second, the municipal district of Tuyen Quang itself, the provincial capital, met with the strongest rates of growth. Third, the two southern districts of Son Duong and Yen Song had the largest population increase in absolute numbers, probably because they lie closer to the highly populated delta regions but also because their topography and soils are more favourable. The available data — or rather, the available reliable data — did not allow us to determine what would have been the respective and relative shares of natural population growth and migrations in the overall population increase of the given districts. Some evidence indicates that, over recent years, outmigrations from the province have tended to largely compensate for, if not be equal to, inmigrations.
The expansion of Kinh settlementThe population increase, which has led to more and more intensive settlement of the mountain districts, is clearly associated with the expansion of agriculture. It also seems to be closely linked with the progression of Viet or Kinh settlement. In fact, between 1960 and 1989, the increase in the number of Kinh, in comparison with those of the ethnic minorities, has manifested itself territorially. As is quite clearly illustrated by maps showing the changes in the proportion of Kinh in the population by commune, the Kinh's share has grown just about everywhere in the province.The progression of this growth follows the northward expansion of agriculture, as well as the path of deforestation (Figure 10). Overall, for the whole of the province, from 1960 to 1975 and from 1975 to 1989, the proportion of Kinh in the total population grew from 39.8% to 47.9% and then to 52.6%. This relative increase occurred in all districts (Table 7).18 A noticeable difference, in terms of rhythm, appears between the two periods; the first one (1960–75) witnessed stronger growth. Also during that period, as mentioned above, US bombardments of the Red River delta were responsible for waves of migrations toward the less industrialized peripheral and mountainous regions. Figure 9. Tuyen Quang: changes in population density, by commune, 1960-89.
The expansion of Kinh settlement and the growth of the demographic share of the Kinh, from 39.8% to 52.6% between 1960 and 1989, occurred at the expense mostly of the Tay–Thai, whose own proportion of the province's total population dropped from 46.8% to 35.5%. This proportionate decline of the Tay–Thai population was particularly striking in Ham Yen district (44.2% to 23.1%). Also significant is that in 1960 the Tay–Thai were more numerous than the Kinh (46.8% versus 39.8%), but by 1975 and, even more, by 1989, the Kinh had largely taken over as the province's major ethnic group, accounting for 52.6% of the province's overall population, versus 35.5% for the Tay–Thai. The Hmong — Yao's share declined slightly over the three decades in four districts but increased slightly in the other two, with a resulting modest decline at the provincial level, from 13.4% to 11.9% (see Table 7). What about swidden agriculture?The data and documents used to prepare the land-use maps did not allow us to really measure the impact of swidden agriculture on the forest cover or on the changes to the cover. However, according to information obtained at the provincial office of the Department of Statistics in the town of Tuyen Quang, this form of agriculture, as practiced by the ethnic minorities, concerned only 3000 ha (30 km2) in 1992.20 Although the area affected by shifting cultivation increased somewhat during the 1980s, it has since apparently begun to decline. Because the total area of the province devoted to agriculture is 1051 km2 (see Table 5), that is, nearly one-fifth of its total territory, this would mean that no more than 3% of it is submitted to shifting cultivation. Notwithstanding the incompleteness of the information on which this statement is based, it does seem to indicate that shifting cultivation cannot be considered a significant factor in the recent and rapid retreat of the province's forest cover.
And firewood?Coherent statistical data concerning the reliance on firewood, particularly for cooking purposes, are equally hard to come by and must be used as cautiously as those concerning the ethnic minorities' agricultural activities. According to recent data, also obtained from the provincial office of the Department of Statistics, the consumption of firewood has been on the increase (Table 8).21 But this increase in absolute quantity consumed can be entirely attributed to overall population growth, as per capita consumption has in fact significantly declined. Just as noticeable, however, is that the decline in per capita consumption has been much greater among the members of the ethnic minorities living in the uplands of the province than among the Kinh. Thus, although the per capita firewood consumption among the Tay — Thai and particularly among the Hmong–Yao was clearly higher than among the Kinh in 1960, it declined to such an extent among the minorities that the respective levels of consumption had become nearly comparable by 1989. Since then the number of Kinh has increased, in both absolute and relative terms, much more rapidly than the number of non-Kinh. The Kinh are therefore most likely to be primarily responsible for the massive threefold increase in firewood consumption over the three decades, from about 239 000 t to 702 000 t.22As shown earlier, the increased Kinh presence was largely linked to agricultural expansion, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s. We could, therefore, formulate the hypothesis that the fundamental instrumental cause of the forest cover's degradation, even of its retreat, is agricultural expansion, to which is related a massive increase in firewood collection, which acts as an additional agent of forest degradation. The impact of commercial loggingIt is apparent to anyone traveling through Tuyen Quang province that commercial logging, carried out by state-sponsored enterprises, is also a major cause of deforestation. Such business concerns are either firmly established or at least very active in each of the districts. However, the one whose impact is most noticeable is the Bai Bang pulp and paper mill. Located on the right bank of the Lo River, in Vinh Phu province, just south of Tuyen Quang province, which is part of its hinterland (raw-material area), this mill is by far the largest of its kind in Viet Nam. Its construction and operation have been largely financed by Sweden. It began operating in the early 1980s.Throughout the duration of our project, certain data on this pulp and paper mill were collected by several members of the project's research team.23 However, the data, notably those concerning the supply of raw material, were not systematic enough to allow for a reliable cartographic representation of the raw-material area and of the changes over time. Such a representation would have allowed us to measure the mill's impact on the retreat of the forest in Tuyen Quang, as well as in the four surrounding provinces. Notwithstanding the various hinterland-replanting programs of some tree species (including several Eucalyptus spp. of lesser quality than those growing in the local natural forests), it appears that the mill has also been relying for its supplies on some not so clearly identified networks of intermediaries. These intermediaries are responsible for collecting the raw material from unofficial suppliers, who are, in fact, peasants in dire need of the revenue from marketing wood (including bamboo harvested from the remaining patches of degraded forests bordering the agricultural areas). But all these processes have been insufficiently documented. In fact, it seems that over the last few years, most of Bai Bang mill's local supplies have come from the replanted areas managed by state enterprises. One thing does seem certain: the impact of this pulp and paper mill on the region's forest cover has been significant. According to a recently published study (Lang 1997), between 1982 and 1992 some 90 000 ha of land was cleared of all trees to supply the mill.24 Finally, it is also quite evident that several forms of illegal logging are practiced in the region, although we have not been able to accurately measure the extent and impact of these practices. The fate of the biodiversityWe were unable to carry out much original research in the field of biodiversity, although some specific research mandates to collect biodiversity data had been handed out. The information that was assembled was not available in a form that would have allowed us to relate the changes in biodiversity resources to the retreat of the forest cover and its presumed causes. However, some data were indeed compiled from various existing sources and reassessed by some of the Vietnamese researchers associated with the project.25 Toward the end, a synthesis was drawn from the various documents assembled by these researchers, and this was submitted as one of the annexes contained in the final report. It included a reference to the presence within Tuyen Quang province of 90 families, 258 classes, and 597 species of flora, many of which are endangered.Finally, again on the basis of the documents submitted by Vietnamese members of our team, it was possible to come up with a cartographic representation of the changes in population of several species of mammals (Figures 11 and 12). The first set concerns six species: the tiger, the Asiatic black bear, the clouded leopard, the Indian muntjak (a small cervine), the sambar (another small cervine), and the Sumatran serow (a small caprine) (Figure 11). The second set deals with three primates: the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey, François' monkey, and Phayre's leaf monkey (Figure 12). Figure 11. Tuyen Quang: changes in the distribution of six species of mammals, by district, 1960–92. Although assembled at a rather rough scale, these cartographic representations do illustrate the dramatic reduction of the habitat of each of these mammals. In fact, during each of the three periods represented — 1960–75, 1975–82, and 1982 – 92 — their respective territories appeared largely equivalent and in some cases absolutely identical. In other words, the territorial distribution of each of these species seems to have evolved in an similar manner. During the initial period (1960 — 75), tigers, bears, and panthers, as well as representatives of the six other species, were still to be found in each of the province's districts, except in the municipal district of Tuyen Quang. By 1992, the Phayre's leaf monkey had completely disappeared and the other eight species were confined to the northern mountainous districts of Chiem Hoa and Na Hang. In fact, five of these could only be found in Na Hang district: the tiger, the Asiatic black bear, the clouded leopard, the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey, and François' monkey. In short, the habitat of each of these mammals is shrinking rapidly — as is their number — following the pace of the retreat of the forest, and this in turn appears to be dictated by agricultural expansion. I have already shown that for understandable reasons this expansion was first achieved along the lower slopes (see Figures 7 and 8). This explains why it is in areas of higher relief and steeper slopes that the last expanses of rain forest are to be found — along with the last of the mammals, which take refuge under the canopy.26 13 The sources that we consulted to piece together the land-use maps for 1975 and 1992 were based on various incomplete, contradictory, and at times confusing typologies. We therefore had to make choices and to rely on a much simplified typology. Thus, only one category (usually referred to here by the term large closed forest) was used to represent the two major forest types, rain forest and monsoon forest. We were, however, able to isolate a degraded form of forest cover, namely, the type in which bamboo predominates. [BACK] 14 This map and those showing land use for 1975 and 1992 (see Figure 8) were first processed by the FIPI, whose offices are located in the suburbs of Hanoi. Members of our research team subsequently submitted all these maps to a series of processes of simplification and standardization. [BACK] 15 We were able to put together a land-use map for 1982 as well. It was initially meant to be comparable with the 1975 and 1992 maps, but it quickly became evident that its contents were too imprecise and incoherent to allow for any meaningful analysis. Although it required hundreds of hours of work, as did the two others, we had to abandon the idea of making use of it. [BACK] 16 The surface areas covered by various land uses were determined by planimetry from the maps we produced. This ensures a perfect compatibility between our maps and our tables. It should be added that when the two figures we arrived at for areas covered by the large closed forests (12%) and by the bamboo forests (16%) are summed, the result (28%) is roughly equivalent to the figure often quoted by Vietnamese authors when they refer to the remaining "forest." This distinction is important because the so-called bamboo forest represents a very degraded form of tropical forest, whether of the rain-forest or the monsoon type. This degraded form may, however, over time and given favourable conditions, evolve toward a more advanced and richer form of forest, and eventually the climax type may be reconstituted. [BACK] 17 Reference to this "other" land-use category can become confusing and misleading. In fact, it does illustrate the immense difficulty encountered by anyone trying to interpret Vietnamese maps. Having familiarized ourselves with the sources consulted for the production of the 1975 and 1992 maps, we became reasonably certain that the "other" category on the 1943 map served to designate agricultural lands, whereas the same category refers to uncultivated and nonforested rural areas on the 1975 and 1992 maps. [BACK] 18 Lam Thi Mai Lan, one of the NCSS researchers involved in the project, presented and analyzed these figures during the project's final workshop, held in Hanoi in May 1996. [BACK] 19 It should be pointed out that, most likely, not a single Muong resides in Tuyen Quang province and that persons designated in the official statistical reports as KinhMuong are in fact all Kinh. [BACK] 20 Dan Duc Phuong, another of the NCSS researchers involved in the project, presented and analyzed these figures during the project's final workshop, held in Hanoi in May 1996. [BACK] 21 Dan Duc Phuong also presented and analyzed these figures during the project's final workshop, held in Hanoi in May 1996. [BACK] 22 Two comments must be added here. Among the members of ethnic minorities, average income appears to be a great deal less than that of the Kinh; and in poor rural communities, it is the poorest among the poor who rely the most on the fuel of the poor, namely, firewood. The difference in respective per capita firewood-consumption levels of the Kinh and of the non-Kinh thus appears surprisingly low. Could this be attributed to a recent improvement in the minorities' living standards? Or could it be attributed to a wiser use of resources among these minorities? Answers to these questions could only be obtained through careful field surveys. [BACK] 23 In particular by Dan Duc Phuong, who presented reports on the Bai Bang pulp and paper mill at the December 1994 and May 1996 workshops. [BACK] 24 The history of the Bai Bang pulp and paper mill, along with the geography and even the geopolitics of the mill's impacts, would be a worthy topic for a doctoral dissertation. [BACK] 25 These included the paper presented by Professor Lam Xuan Sanh at both of the workshops held in December 1994 in HCMC and Hanoi, as well as the two papers presented by Dang Huy Huynh, Hoang Minh Khien, Le Xuan Canh, and Tran Van Thang during the December 1994 and May 1996 Hanoi workshops. [BACK] 26 This increasingly noticeable confinement of the province's last rain forests to the uplands and steep slopes was the topic of a paper presented by Duong Tri Hung, from FIPI, at the December 1995 Hanoi workshop. [BACK]
Document(s) 6 of 10
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