Page 73 - Agricultural innovation

field and sign border receipts through village meetings in the 7-step process of the project
technical instructions.
• Environmental sustainability and adaptation to climate change: When having a certificate of forest
land use right, people feel secure to keep forests, protect forests and develop forest areas including
natural forests and planted forests. The increased percentage of forest cover has contributed to
environmental protection, water source protection, and forest ecosystem protection. Currently,
although it is a poor forest, with shrubs and mixed trees of low economic value, it has a great effect
in keeping the land and hilly land no longer subject to erosion like previous shifting cultivation.
In addition, people and villages also receive more money to pay for forest environment services
to increase community development funds.

5.6.3. Opportunities and challenges
The model of land allocation and forest allocation with the participation of people has harmonized
the relationships between owners and users in which people’s rights are guaranteed and encouraged to
participate in and manage and develop benefit from forest development.
This model is a form of promoting the process of land and forest allocation in Vietnam, solving
bottlenecks in overlapping farming, disputes between users (communities, businesses, people, etc...).
However, extending this model may face certain challenges. First of all, it is the coordination
between the State management agencies. This activity involves many management agencies
(environmental resources, agriculture and rural development), different levels of population
management (province, district, commune), involving many households with documents are not
clear. Therefore, the confusion at any stage in the implementation steps will slow down the progress,
the enthusiasm of the parties to resolve, etc. Within the framework of the CSSP project, the FLA
is carried out based on close cooperation between the project and the Department of Natural
Resources and Environment, Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, District People’s
Committee (Department of Natural Resources and Environment, Department of Agriculture
and Rural Development, Forest Protection Department) and People’s Committees of communes
and villages.
Forest allocation activities require large budgets for document review, cadastral mapping, forest
allocation maps, field identification, and involves multiple levels of government, communities and
other stakeholders, subjects granted land use right certificates. Especially this problem is a big obstacle
for mountainous districts and localities where there is a lot of forest land and forests. Therefore, in
fact, if it is only based on local resources or contributors, it will be very difficult, but it will need other
sources of funding.
In mountainous areas, people’s income is low, so the willingness to pay of households for forest
land allocation is very low. This has a significant impact on implementation progress.

5.6.4. Conclusions
The participatory model of land and forest allocation in Bac Kan province is a valuable experience in
promoting forest land and forest allocation in Vietnam’s forestry sector. It has resolved the conflicts of
interest between the parties involved in the management and exploitation of forest land. This model
also presents challenges that may be faced in the process of expanding to other locations. However, the
benefits of the model are much larger and it is one of the ways to approach the law and the needs of
the people to ensure that forest resources are protected and developed. This model will help localities
to most effectively review forest resources in preparation for participating in the carbon market and
forest payment services in the future.

66 ©2023 NARDT