Documento(s) 8 de 10

Lacunae and findings 
What to do? 

Lacunae and findings

Among the scientific results of the project, a certain number of lacunae — but also some genuine findings or progress — can be identified. The causes and circumstances behind the lacunae have been dealt with at length in the first chapters. The actual nature of these lacunae essentially centres on our incapacity to truly measure and account for all the presumed causes of deforestation. More precisely, the problem was that we were unable to carry out a thorough diachronic analysis of all the factors initially and hypothetically identified as instrumental. Nevertheless, we did manage to decipher a few of them and, more importantly, to both demonstrate the validity of our central hypothesis and seriously question a number of so-called truths concerning the causes of deforestation in Viet Nam:

1. We were able to isolate several processes in time and space and to represent them cartographically, allowing us to point to Kinh agricultural expansion as the one major instrumental cause of deforestation. This was shown to be equally true for both Tuyen Quang and Lam Dong provinces. 
2. Obviously, for the two provinces, the actual deforestation processes have followed somewhat different timetables. In Tuyen Quang province, located north of the Red River delta, deforestation, although still under way, was most intensive in the 1960s and 1970s. At that time, for war-related reasons, several of the provinces surrounding the delta had to host large numbers of migrants. Since the early 1980s, however, it seems that commercial concerns associated with the gigantic Bai Bang pulp and paper mill have become the major agents of deforestation. In contrast, in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong, the retreat of the forest is closely associated with the ever-vigourous migration and agricultural expansion of the Kinh colonists, whether or not this modern form of agricultural expansion is officially backed by the Vietnamese state. 
3. Tuyen Quang still appears much more deprived of its forests: the forests cling to only 7% of the provincial domain (in 1992), compared to 35% for their counterparts in Lam Dong. At least equally meaningful is the fact that barren lands dominate the Tuyen Quang landscape (64% of the land), a bad example, if not a bad omen, for the southern province — where such barren lands still account for "only" 20% of land use — if the advance of its frontier maintains its current pace. 
4. We could even formulate the hypothesis of an historical commonality, an historical link between the different locations of the processes of deforestation. These processes would constitute one of the geographical repercussions of the advance of Kinh settlement. For several reasons, these repercussions, which were initially felt in the mountainous forested areas surrounding the Red River delta, have now reached the forested Central Highlands. This link even involves, as we have seen, members of ethnic communities: the Hmong and Nung people become, on behalf of Kinh colonists, territorial spearheads for the clearing of vast expanses of forest land, which are then devoted to the cultivation of cash crops. 
5. It seems obvious, however, that even if some evidence suggests that a few members of ethnic minorities are involved in forms of agriculture that may lead to deforestation, the consequences are in no way comparable to those of the agricultural practices of Kinh colonists. In broad terms, it can be estimated that for each hectare of forest destroyed by the agricultural practices of the minorities, at least 20 ha is destroyed by those of the Kinh pioneers. 
6. To this must be added an instrumental factor that becomes exceptionally active and significant in the context of pioneering agricultural expansion: wood and firewood collection by the new settlers. This gathering is particularly intensive, as the pioneers and settlers are often caught in situations of energy deficit, and in such situations wood and other forest products (including many that can be collected without forest clearing per se) become essential means of survival. Wood is also often used, legally or illegally, as house-construction material, but more importantly it is used as fuel for cooking food, including food for the pigs that many settlers raise (Brassard 1997). 
7. Our study also allowed us to look more closely at geopolitical issues, especially whether agricultural expansion plays a geopolitical role in the integration of marginal and peripheral areas largely or even predominantly inhabited by ethnic minorities. The future of these minority groups remains closely linked to that of all the highlands of Viet Nam and therefore to the forest-protection and development policies implemented by the national Vietnamese authorities. 
8. As pointed out by Rambo (1995), the policies that relate to planning for and managing the development of the uplands solely in the interests of the dominant ethnic community are not specific to Viet Nam. In this country, just as in several others in Southeast Asia, such policies were consolidated during the colonial period. In Viet Nam, the consequences have been particularly disastrous for the ethnic minorities, whose overall living conditions appear very precarious indeed. 

In Southeast Asia, it is conceivable that the panregional consolidation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will allow its nine members to better consult each other regarding their social and environmental policies, with the understanding that the two types of policy remain closely linked and should condition their political and economic policies, not the other way around.

Thus, the management of the forest heritage is an issue that must be dealt with at all geographical scales — whether local, national, panregional, or even global. For example, since mid-1997, massive operations using fire to clear land for agricultural expansion in Indonesia have had severe and detrimental environmental consequences throughout much of the rest of Southeast Asia. Although the Indonesian authorities did recognize publicly and for the first time that ethnic minorities were not to blame, but rather that agricultural expansion (basically for oil palm) was the main culprit, very little has been done to curb the dangerous practice. The world-market demand is still there for palm oil, rubber, plywood, etc. So, given the current predicament of the Indonesian economy, the World Bank and the IMF are likely to continue to support all forms of export policies, even those whose social and environmental consequences are clearly questionable.

In such a context, it is crucial that researchers remain active on all fronts, documenting, analyzing, and interpreting what is really happening at the ground level, where people live.

What to do?

Before I get into these, it seems appropriate to recall that, as stated in the introductory chapter, Viet Nam is already one of the least-forested countries in the region, if not the least forested. Obviously, time is of the essence; the forest continues to retreat rapidly, probably more rapidly than most observers will admit. As already discussed, in the province of Lam Dong alone, more than 10 000 ha of forest is cleared annually: this corresponds to about 2% of the remaining provincial forest cover. But the three other still heavily forested provinces of the Central Highlands (Dac Lac, Gia Lai, and Kon Tum) are also being taken to task — especially Dac Lac — and probably at an even heavier pace. Overall, as stated earlier, it can be estimated that the forests of Viet Nam recede by more than 200 000 ha/year. Estimates of the proportion of the country still forested in 1997 vary between 10 and 20%, that is, between some 3.3 million and 6.6 million ha. In other words, the national annual rate of deforestation stands between 3 and 6%.

1. If the Vietnamese government does have the will to cope with the forest challenge, that is, the will to implement policies to support the optimal use, protection, and rehabilitation of the dwindling forest heritage, it is imperative that the government reexamine its own policies of commercial forest exploitation and, even more, those of agricultural expansion. 
2. After the research report (on which this book is based) was handed in to IDRC at the very end of 1996, Vietnamese authorities in fact began to proclaim drastic measures designed to better protect the country's forests. Thus, in April and May 1997, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development decreed that all natural forests would be closed to commercial logging, at the same time forbidding all forms of spontaneous migrations into forest areas (Viet Nam News, 8 June 1997). But the government's spokesperson made no mention of state-sponsored agricultural expansion. On the contrary, this seems to be vigorously encouraged, as new areas are being opened — primarily in the Central Plateaus but also in Dong Nai province (Roussel and Hoang 1997) and even in some coastal provinces — for cultivation of export crops. Among these coffee and rubber predominate. In fact, both of these crops are the object of extremely ambitious programs, which in the case of rubber includes a planned expansion from some 290 000 ha in 1996 to 750 000 ha by 2005 (Eschbach and Tran 1997). 
3. Given the obvious persistence and magnitude of the agricultural-expansion policies, as well as the already heavy impact of the NEZs (demonstrated above and emphasized by authors such as Sikor [1995]), it seems essential that the Vietnamese authorities and their various partners permit and facilitate permanent monitoring of the environmental impacts of this expansion on the few remaining stands of natural forests. These include the so-called downstream impacts — those felt in the lowlands, whose environmental health (water, soil, energy, etc.) depends so much on the natural equilibrium of the highlands. 
4. The scientific and social objectives of these studies should be clearly and specifically defined, and their pursuit should rely on attempts to verify a series of hypotheses through appropriate methods and means. 
5. These investigations should deal with a whole set of objects and propositions related to the problem of the optimal use of the dwindling natural forests. The results may point to a need to broaden and improve current forest-protection and -rehabilitation policies and, more fundamentally, their implementation. 

Indigenous knowledge and use of biodiversity

New settlers' nibbling

Ethnic minorities' nibbling

Energy requirements

Commercial exploitation

Forest protection

Reforestation

Agricultural expansion

To actually implement this agenda, a multidisciplinary approach and well-articulated case studies are needed. In turn, for such articulations to be meaningful and for their scientific results to be useful to policymakers, near-permanent methodological concertations among the researchers are needed. In this manner, the already positive results of The Forest Challenge in Viet Nam project, in terms of both training and analysis, are likely to be further enhanced. But this will be better achieved if Vietnamese scholars and planners produce their own rigorous, field-based analyses and interpretations of this challenge and all its ramifications and implications. Given the already ongoing follow-up to the above project, that seems like a realistic proposition.

Documento(s) 8 de 10