Social Movements Contesting Natural Resource Development by John F. Devlin

Author:John F. Devlin [Devlin, John F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138064737
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 42985985
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-10-28T00:00:00+00:00

Negotiating the meaning of FES

It is generally very difficult for people in Vietnam to negotiate with the state. This does not mean, however, that all petitions and negotiations over forest land rights from villagers are rejected by the state. For instance, a TL commune case in the province demonstrates how the Co Tu ethnic minorities negotiated and won forest land rights, which a state forest enterprise (SFE) had previously removed. The BH village and TL commune cases have similar backgrounds and are both centred on conflicts over forest land allocation. One of the notable differences between them, however, is that the forest area in the BH village is in a more important state location (i.e. hydropower dam site), which is why the PFES was utilized in this case.

In addition, it seems that local negotiation is more difficult in the PFES programme than in other forest land conflicts. In the PFES programme, the information base is automatically utilized to evaluate the forest status and decide whether the payment amount can be established or paid. Hence, the PFES reinforces the influence of official information (including ‘scientific’ information, as from GIS technology) over field data collected from people. This makes local negotiating power weaker in the PFES than in conventional forest management schemes, which are more of the ‘command and control’ style, but where the relevant information is fragmented across various government agencies.

Another difference is that the TL negotiations are for villagers’ forest land rights, while the BH villagers were negotiating over both the rights and the interpretation of environmental services. The BH villagers’ negotiations are worth serious consideration when we think about the very meaning of FES. Whatever the commune officers and villagers intended, this raises questions about who and what provide FES. If the land provides FES, the FMB as the landowner is likely to be the provider and recipient of FES payments. However, this poses some questions: Do the trees contribute to FES and, if so, who are the owners of the trees? Moreover, should ‘owners’ include the villagers who own the crops? If so, should they receive payment as FES providers?

How to understand the FES was discussed among policy makers and implementers during policy formation and implementation. When the authors asked a FPDF officer about the link between FES and the forest, he admitted that there are no actual studies about this in Vietnam. However, it seemed he assumed that if the forest is ‘better’ in terms of both quantity and quality, more FES would be expected. It was in this context that he revised the provincial principle of PFES payment to not make payments to acacia plantations in production forest areas because acacia is not a native species and thus creates a degraded forest.

Meanwhile, a national-level policy maker noted the difficulty in defining FES. He told one of the authors that he had a difficult discussion with Ministry of Finance officers regarding how FES payments should operate. During the discussion, the officers continued to ask him what FES are.

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