Trajectories of deforestation, coffee expansion and displacement of shifting cultivation in the Central Highlands of Vietnam

TitleTrajectories of deforestation, coffee expansion and displacement of shifting cultivation in the Central Highlands of Vietnam
Annotated RecordAnnotated
Year of Publication2013
AuthorsMeyfroidt P, Vu_Tan_Phuong _, Hoang_Viet_Anh _
Secondary TitleGlobal Environmental Change
Volume23
Issue5
Pagination1187-1198
PublisherElsevier Ltd
Key themesAgriculturalModernization, Dispossession-grabbing, Environment, MarginalisedPeople
Abstract

Production of commodities for global markets is an increasingly important factor of tropical deforestation, taking over smallholders subsistence farming. Measures to reduce deforestation and convert shifting cultivation systems towards permanent crops have recently been strengthened in several countries. But these changes have variable environmental and social impacts, including on ethnic minorities. In Vietnam, although a forest transition - i.e. shift from shrinking to expanding forest cover - occurred at the national scale, deforestation fronts and agricultural colonization for commodity crops - a.o. coffee - still dominated the Central Highlands plateaus. Previous studies suggested that the dominant land use changes in that region were on the one hand the acquisition and conversion of agricultural lands to perennial crops for external markets by capital-endowed Kinh households - the majority ethnic group in Vietnam - and on the other hand the corresponding displacement of poor households of ethnic minorities relying on shifting cultivation towards the forest margins. This study tested this hypothesis by using remote sensing to analyze land use and cover changes and deforestation trajectories in the coffee-growing area in Dak Lak and Dak Nong provinces over 2000-2010. Land use changes were linked with socioeconomic dynamics using secondary statistics and spatial modelling. Net deforestation reached -0.31%y-1 of the total area between 2000 and 2010. Deforestation was indeed mainly directly caused by shifting cultivation for annual crops, but this was partly driven indirectly by expansion of coffee and other perennial crops over agricultural lands. Displacement of shifting cultivation into the forest margins, pushed by market crops expansion, was the spatial manifestation of the marginalization of local ethnic minorities and poor migrants, pushed by capital-endowed migrants. This marginalization is a long-standing process rooted in the colonization and development strategy for the highlands followed since colonial times. Over the late 2000s, rapid deforestation was strongly reducing the benefits of national-scale forest recovery, and might shift the country back to net losses of natural forest. Implications for policies that may affect deforestation are discussed.

URLhttps://dial.uclouvain.be/pr/boreal/object/boreal:129800/datastream/PDF_01/view
Availability

Available for download

Countries

Vietnam

Document Type

Journal Article

Annotations

Overall relevance: 

The article examines how the global coffee market has caused a Kinh migration to settle down and invest in the crop, displacing ethnic minority populations from their land in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. As well as marginalization, this has resulted in deforestation where minority groups have cleared more forest to practice shifting cultivation. The article focuses on the influence of the global market and the history of land use, to elucidate on present changes in land use and deforestation

Key Themes: 
  • Agricultural modernisation: key ideas and debates relevant to land tenure security - The market crops expansion in the Central Highlands of Vietnam by the Kinh migrants is replacing the traditional practices of shifting cultivation crop by the ethnic minority
  • Land dispossession/land grabbing - Dispossession historically was initiated by the Vietnamese government to promote a Special Economic Zone and the resettlement of migrants in highland areas
  • Land and the environment: pollution, deforestation, climate change, conservation zoning - The price of coffee in the world market has significantly contributed to deforestation in the Central Highlands of Vietnam that could affect global climate change
  • Marginalized people's land rights and access: ethnic minorities, poor and women - Ethnic minorities have been marginalized against the Kinh majority, and have been placed under control and surveillance by the national government. Dispossession of agricultural land has forced them to move to marginal forest where they struggle to live through shifting cultivation agriculture
Research basis: 

The research employs geomorphology to illustrate the land use change of the land use through farming and forestland degradation, and a literature review that traces the power relations between ethnic minorities and majority groups back to the French colonial era. (Provided by Tanasak Phosrikun)