Community Forest Management (CFM) in Vietnam: Sustainable Forest Management and Benefit Sharing

The concept of Community Forest Management (CFM) was officially recognized for the first time in Vietnam with the implementation of the Law on Forest Protection and Development (2004). Prior to this, however, the Government of Vietnam had been promoting CFM for some decades, specifically on issues such as i) the process of forest land allocation to households / household groups (particularly to poor, ethnic minorities who’s livelihoods are closely linked to traditional forest management), ii) the decentralization of forest management, and iii) the development of pro-poor mechanisms targeting those groups who are involved in implementing innovative forest management solutions. This process of devolving forest management has been facing some significant challenges. For example, there is a lack of capacity in participatory methodology to support forest allocation, community forest assessment and planning. In addition, the policy on benefit sharing for land recipients is not clear and therefore not workable, and the administrative procedures for harvesting, which have historically been applied to State Forest Enterprises, are too complicated for the Community Forest Management context.

Available for download

Conference Proceedings