VIETNAM
Deforestation, reforestation and industrial plantations
by Chris Lang

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International aid agencies are playing an increasing role in establishing plantations in Vietnam. For example, in 1998, forestry consultants Fortech reported that 38,600 hectares of production plantations were to be planted that year with funding from World Food Programme, Sida, Germany's KfW, ADB, World Bank, European Commission and other government aid programmes (Fortech 1998: 8).

However, as Fortech's consultant points out, in spite of a "long history of donor support, there are few plantations in the field – either Government or donor supported – that have survived to full rotation age" (Fortech 1998: 8).

A review of aid to the environmental sector in Vietnam carried out in 1999 points out that "Not all environment ODA necessarily helps the environment" and adds that the environmental implication of many projects have yet to be assessed, and "may produce unwanted side effects" (Carew-Reid et al 1999: 80).

The authors of the report point out that "Tree planting and forest conservation are not necessarily linked in the straightforward and simple way that many policy-makers believe. Focussing on plantation development, therefore, fails to recognise and treat the real causes of natural forest loss" (Carew-Reid et al 1999: 81).

This section looks at some of the international support to the forest sector in Vietnam, particularly focussing on plantation development.

The World Bank, FAO, UNDP and World Resources Institute dreamed up the Tropical Forestry Action in 1985. Over the next ten years, TFAP studies were produced in 89 countries.

Vietnam's TFAP process started following a visit in November 1988 by Chuck Lankester (then of UNDP, and later to become infamous as Executive Agent at the Mekong Secretariat in Bangkok), and R.D.H. Lowe (of the World Bank). By the time Vietnam's TFAP was produced in December 1991, the TFAP was coming under increasing criticism internationally.

A wide range of NGOs, environmentalist and local community organisations opposed TFAP when the first TFAP reports appeared. Many of the criticisms were compiled by the World Rainforest Movement (1992) and can be summarised in the Vietnamese context as follows:

• The TFAP was top down and dominated by international consultants. All the technical reports for Vietnam's TFAP were written by international consultants;

• Consultants paid little attention to the 54 different ethnic minority groups, in Vietnam, many practising forms of shifting agriculture differing depending on climate, aspect, culture, tradition, and soil fertility;

• The TFAP encouraged investment in commercial forestry, even in countries where almost all the natural forest has been cleared. In Vietnam, one of the TFAP's consultants, Keith Gray argued that an expanded pulp and paper industry was necessary to absorb the raw materials produced by the government's reforestation plan;

• The TFAP fails to address the root causes of deforestation, assuming that deforestation is caused by the rural poor and not by logging, for example;

• There is a total failure within TFAP to criticise or even discuss the impact of large scale development projects on forests and on the people living in or near the forests. For example, the TFAPs prepared for Laos, Thailand and Vietnam all failed to investigate the impact of proposed hydropower schemes on people and forests in the region;

• International consultants have a vested interest in not criticising either the TFAP or the forestry practices of the country under study. One of the results of the TFAP process is a series of proposed projects, all of which require international consultants, and there are good career opportunities available for the consultant who is prepared to toe the line;

• The TFAP has failed to reduce the rate of deforestation. (See Lang 1996a for a more detailed critique of the TFAP process in Vietnam.)

One result of the TFAP process in Vietnam was a "shopping list" of 34 projects, including a review of the pulp and paper sector (US$140,000), industrial plantations development (US$25 million), and identification of sites for industrial plantations (US$150,000). Projects that actually took place include a three year capacity building programme for national forestry planning, funded by Sweden, and the reorganization of the Ministry of Forestry, funded by Germany (FAO 1995: 212). However, out of a total of almost US$200 million requested for investment or aid in the forestry sector, very little was actually committed.

TFAP's influence, rather than in terms of numbers of projects, is better understood as a "foot in the door" of Vietnam's forestry sector for a number of international institutions and consultants. According to the World Bank, the Vietnam government's Programme 327 was a result of Vietnam's TFAP (World Bank 1995: 4).

FAO was one of the organisations which set up the Tropical Forestry Action Plan in Vietnam (see above). In 1995, an Italian government-funded project started, entitled Country Capacity Strengthening for National Forestry Action Plan Implementation in Vietnam. The US$600,000 project was carried out by FAO (Salmi et al 1999: 120).

FAO is part of the Forest Sector Support Programme under the five million hectare reforestation programme (see above).

In December 1993, a FAO project, titled "Strengthening Re-afforestation Programmes in Asia" (STRAP) started, with US$1,046,340 from the Japanese Government. The project covered Vietnam, Laos, Burma and Bhutan and ended in November 1996. According to FAO's final evaluation mission of the project, "Project activities concentrated on awareness raising of the need for accelerated plantation re-afforestation at national and provincial government levels" (FAO 1996b).

FAO also reports that in Vietnam under the STRAP project, "a widely publicized and well attended industrial plantation workshop . . . led to a major international pulpwood plantation investment" (FAO 1996b). The meeting was held in Pleiku in Gia Lai province in January 1996, however, in reply to my question about the plantation investment, Jim Carle, Senior Forest Officer at FAO in Rome said, "FAO does not have access to the individual country forest plantation development data that may have resulted indirectly as an output outcome by secondary beneficiaries of the project" (Carle 2002).

The UNDP Programme on Forests (PROFOR) aims "at enhancing the implementation of the IPF Proposals for Action" and puts particular emphasis on public and private partnerships. PROFOR works in Cameroon, Costa Rica, Guyana, Malawi and Vietnam (Salmi et al 1999: 12).

In Vietnam, PROFOR started working in 1998 with Orgut acting as consultant. PROFOR has three components:

• "Identifying strategies for sustainable forest management;

• Strengthening National Forest Programmes and Forest Partnership Agreement as instruments to promote sustainable forest management;

• Developing innovative financing for sustainable forest management" (Orgut 1999).

PROFOR helped prepare programme documents for 5MHRP and its field activities have a "close association" with projects of the 5MHRP (Orgut 1999). PROFOR has established four pilot sites in Vietnam.

A 1999 report produced for PROFOR, entitled, "Study on Financing Strategy for Sustainable Forest Management in Vietnam", states that, "investments (and respective financing needs) in the forestry sector can be divided in two broad categories: (i) investments in productive forestry which should be strictly profitable, and (ii) investments in protective and conservation forestry which need to be subsidised by the state/society at least until adequate means for income generation e.g. from tourism or sales of carbon sequestration or biodiversity services and be put in place" (Salmi et al 1999: 10). In dividing forestry investments in such a way, PROFOR completely excludes existing community level management of forests, as if no one in Vietnam (including local people) had thought of managing forests "sustainably" until PROFOR's experts came along.

PROFOR's promotion of "public private partnerships" appears little more than an attempt to get public subsidies for private companies. In their 1999 report, PROFOR's consultants state that an "adequate volume of state subsidies to private forestry should be secured to compensate private investors for public services (soil and water conservation, etc.) provided by forest investments" (Salmi et al 1999: 41). The same report also states: "There is a need to develop stable and favourable investment climate allowing foreign investors to own and operate companies in forest sector" (Salmi et al 1999: 62).

In sharp contrast to their position on subsidising companies, PROFOR's consultants do not recommend giving subsidies to villagers, but ask instead: "Why should the government pay for the labour of the farmers when they plant trees on their own land?" The consultants argue that farmers can do the work of clearing trees, bushes and scrub and then digging holes and planting trees outside the agricultural cycle, when "the farmers are in reality underemployed" (Salmi et al 1999: 78). In other words, according to PROFOR's consultants, it's fine for the government to pay companies to plant trees, but not to pay farmers, who are anyway sitting around with nothing better to do.

The World Food Programme (WFP) supported a plantation programme in Vietnam between 1992 and 1995, during which time 126,000 hectares of plantations were established, mainly of fast-growing exotic tree species. The project aimed to increase "forest cover" on denuded lands for production of fuelwood and small timber poles as well as encouraging soil conservation and sand dune stabilisation to protect farmers fields and villagers (Salmi et al 1999: 122).

Between 1997 and 2001, WFP aimed to plant a further 51,000 hectares (Salmi et al 1999: 20-21). The project cost is US$15.8 million and the plantations are to be in the north west of the country (Salmi et al 1999: 54). Farmers received 500 kilogrammes of rice for every hectare of plantation they establish (Salmi et al 1999: 115).

A 1999 review of aid to the environment sector in Vietnam stated in reference to WFP's project: "While the plantations undoubtedly exist, it is impossible to comment on the programme's economic, social or environmental impacts as there has never been a formal evaluation of any of WFP's projects" (Carew-Reid et al 1999: 83).

The EU is funding a US$23 million social forestry and nature conservation in Nghe An province. In addition to supporting agroforestry initiatives and a nature reserve management plan, the project is to establish a plantation in the buffer zone of the Pumat nature reserve.

The World Bank and the Netherlands government are funding a US$33 million project entitled "Forest development and rural development". The project is to run for five years and started in 1998. Project activities include community development planning, forest management, land allocation, rural infrastructure and agriculture support service. The project works in Dac Lac, Kontum, Binh Phuoc, Dong Nai and Lam Dong provinces.

The World Bank also has a project entitled Northern Mountains Poverty Reduction. The US$100 million project aims to reduce poverty through environmentally sustainable improvement to agricultural production, construction of small-scale rural infrastructure, and improving access to education, health and nutrition (World Bank 2000).

The Bank also has a US$75 million "Barren Hills Afforestation" project. The project aims to "reforest degraded barren hill areas suitable for forestry", improve food security of the rural poor and protect remaining natural forests (World Bank 2000).

The Asian Development Bank resumed lending to Vietnam on 22 October 1993 (ADB 1994: 5).

In April 1997, the ADB announced a US$33 million interest free loan aimed at reforesting three mountain watersheds. The watersheds feed the Chu River in Thanh Hoa province in the north, the Truc Kinh Reservoir in Quang Tri province in central Vietnam and the Ba River in the Central Highlands provinces of Gia Lai and Phu Yen.

The German consulting firm GFA Terra Systems won a contract worth US$4.8 million to carry out the project (GFA www 1).

The project area covers around 114,000 hectares, which the consultants GFA Terra Systems describe as "barren lands" (GFA www 1). One of the aims of the project is to reduce slash and burn cultivation. The project is planned to be completed in December 2003. The total project cost is US$53.2 million. ADB funds 62 per cent with the remainder coming from the Netherlands and "the beneficiaries, who will contribute 15 per cent through their labor". The project is expected to increase output of fuelwood, timber and agroforestry products (ENS 1997).

GFA Terra Systems describe the project targets as follows:

• forestation of 45,000 hectares bare lands;
• enrichment planting of 2,000 hectares using indigenous species;
• forestation of 12,000 ha with fast-growing species;
• agroforestry development with the use of such crops as coffee, cashew, cinnamon on approximately 9,000 hectares; and
• pasture improvement on about 12,000 hectares (GFA www 1).

Between April and December 2000, the Asian Development Bank carried out a Technical Assistance titled, "Study on the Policy and Institutional Framework for Forest Resources Management". Among the team's goals was to "assess capacity building needs to implement the National Reforestation Program efficiently" (MARD 2001a).

On occasion, Sida is remarkably clear about the benefits of its aid. In 1998, Sida produced a brochure celebrating 30 years involvement in Vietnam. One of the articles, titled "Swedish cooperation with Vietnam a win-win deal" starts with the statement:

"Sweden has benefited a lot from development cooperation with Vietnam. Development aid has cleared the way for Swedish companies. The Bai Bang project, with its many branches, has produced a lot of spin-off effects" (Sida 1998: 24).

Goran Ehren, ABB's representative in Vietnam confirms the importance of Sida to his company: "The Sida-supported project [Bai Bang] definitely opened the doors for ABB and we have become well-known to the ministries" (Sida 1998: 24).

Sweden has been working on forestry projects in Vietnam since the beginning of the 1970s with its involvement in the Bai Bang pulp and paper mill. Sida is among the agencies funding the expansion of the Bai Bang mill. (See section on Bai Bang, below.)

Sweden and Sida's involvement has gradually developed from production-orientated forestry to rural development focussed projects. Between 1991-1995, the Vietnam-Sweden Forestry Cooperation Programme, for example, included credit schemes and livestock management (Carew-Reid et al 1999: 95).

Sida's most recent project is the Mountain Rural Development Programme (MRDP) in Ha Giang, Lao Cai, Yen Bai, Tuyen Quang and Phu Tho provinces in the north of Vietnam. The US$18.1 million project includes the following components: participatory land use planning, land allocation and community forest management; extension and research; market information and business development; rural finance service; human resource development; organisational development; and gender balanced development (Salmi et al 1999: 118).

The consultant for the project is SCC Natur. The programme was due to be completed in 2000, but was extended until the end of 2001 (Samuelsson 2000).

The project provides each village with a credit fund and sets up savings and credit groups. Loans can be used for whatever the borrowers want, but priority is given to loans for agriculture and forestry purposes. Farmers are provided with free seedlings and fertiliser, extension service, forest land allocation and credit for plantations (Salmi et al 1999: 119).

As well as rural development in mountain areas, the project also aims to provide policy support to MARD. Swedish aid officials enjoy close professional relationships with forestry officials in Vietnam, at least partly because of Sweden's long term involvement in Vietnam. Part of the MRDP's policy support activities include funding the International Support Group (ISG) in MARD's International Cooperation Department (Carew-Reid et al 1999: 95). The ISG holds a plenary meeting every year "to serve as an open forum between the donor community, international organisations involved in the agriculture and rural development activities and Vietnamese management agencies" (MARD 2001b).

In April 2000, Sida was reported to be carrying out an evaluation of its work in Vietnam over the last ten years (Samuelsson 2000).

The German government is involved in funding four projects aimed at reforesting areas of Vietnam. The consultant on all these projects is GFA Terra Systems. Although the focus of the projects is aimed at encouraging local people to plant trees, rather than establishing large scale industrial plantations, some of the projects include components for fast-growing tree species and "encouraging forest plantations".

In addition, GTZ is funded a project entitled Support to the Reform of the Forest Administration System (REFAS). Dorothea Hill of GTZ's office in Vietnam states that GTZ is currently not funding any projects relating to plantations.

The German-funded Social Forestry Development Project (SFDP) in Song Da Watershed aims to improve "the living conditions of the local population in the Song Da region . . . by applying ecologically and economically sustainable land use systems" (Carew-Reid et al 1999: 85). The US$4.5 million, 12-year project started in 1993 and is currently in a hand-over phase. The project has become part of a Debt for Nature swap signed by the governments of Germany and Vietnam in 1996. Under the agreement, Germany will agree to cancel part of Vietnam's debt in return for environmental projects carried out in Vietnam. One of the five projects under the agreement is the reforestation of the Da watershed (Carew-Reid et al 1999: 191).

The SFDP has developed assisted natural forest generation techniques, both with and without farmers' involvement (Carew-Reid et al 1999: 85). The project focusses on the conservation of the natural resources and the improvement of living conditions of the local population (Salmi et al 1999: 123). The project is funded through Germany's technical cooperation agency, GTZ (Gesellschaft fuer Zusammenarbeit) (GFA www 2).

Germany's Bank for Reconstruction, KfW (Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau), has funded three reforestation projects in Vietnam and is planning two further projects.

The first KfW-funded afforestation project in Vietnam was in Lang Son and Bac Giang provinces and started in November 1995 (Kirchhoff et al no date). The project ran until 1999 and aimed to plant 12,000 hectares of "new forests".

The second KfW-funded project started in 1997. The Afforestation in Ha Tinh, Quang Binh and Quang Tri Provinces project aims to provide financial support to farmers (through savings accounts) for tree planting and tending (GFA www 3). According to a report in the Vietnamese newspaper Nhan Dan in August 1999, the project aims at planting 21,000 hectares of forest land with pine trees for glue and resin and other native trees. However, eucalyptus and acacia seedlings account for approximately one third of seedlings produced in four project nurseries to be planted by farmers (Nhan Dan 11 August 1999).

Another KfW-funded project is titled Afforestation in Bac Giang, Quang Ninh and Lang Son Provinces. The project aims to reforest about 13,500 hectares of land, and introduce sustainable forest management. The reforestation is to be carried out by local people (GFA www 4) from 29 communes (Kirchhoff et al no date).

The five year project started in 1999. Activities of the project include: participatory land use planning at village level; training local extension workers; providing households with seeds and other inputs for plantations; promoting "forest plantation"; and providing finance to farm households for afforestation (Salmi et al 1999: 117).

Under the project, farmers receive a maximum of four hectares: two hectares for afforestation and/or two hectares for natural regeneration. When farmers plant trees and tend natural regeneration, they receive credits into a savings account created in their name. The savings account receives interest. Farmers are allowed to withdraw certain amounts of money from their accounts at certain times providing the planted trees or regenerated forest meet the criteria for quality laid down by the project (Kirchhoff et al no date).

The Vietnam-Finland Forestry Sector Cooperation Programme aims to introduce and disseminate sustainable forest management as an alternative to shifting cultivation. Project activities include community development, reviewing the land allocation status at commune level, and capacity building. Phase 1 of the project started in 1996. Phase 2 started in 1999 and will run until 2003. The total project budget is US$5.7 million. Enso Consulting is acting as consultant on the project. (See report on Thailand.)

The Finnish government is also funding a micro-credit project, the Vietnam-Finland Credit Scheme for Sustainable Multi-purpose Farm Forestry, in Bac Kan province. The project started in August 1997, and aims to provide cheap credit to farmers in Cho Don district who have been allocated forest land. The credit can be used for agroforestry, tree planting, fruit trees, non-timber forest products development or other purposes providing they do not destroy forest (Salmi et al 1999: 109).

Australia is funding a "carbon sink" project in Vietnam, through the government's International Greenhouse Partnerships (IGP) Programme. (See Lang 2001 for a more detailed critique of this project.) Launched in May 1998, and working from within the Department of Industry, Science and Resources, the IGP Programme aims "to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through projects overseas" that will in future be considered as carbon off-set projects under the Kyoto protocol (IGP www 1).

The US$242,000 IGP project in Vietnam aims to establish fast-growing tree plantations. The project is to be carried out by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) with the Research Centre for Forest Tree Improvement of Vietnam. According to Nick Minchin the Australian Minister for Industry, Science and Resources, CSIRO "will increase the carbon dioxide uptake of planted forests [sic] in Vietnam through the use of genetically improved planting stock" (Minchin 2001).

CSIRO will supply acacia and eucalyptus seeds and will establish four seedling orchards, each covering

five hectares, two in Quang Tri province in central Vietnam and two in Binh Thuan province in the south. Seedlings from these orchards will be planted over a total area of 8,250 hectares on a range of sites in Vietnam (IGP 2001).

CSIRO estimates that the plantations will remove "an extra 21,500 tonnes of CO2" from the atmosphere per year compared to other tree plantations. The calculation is based on a 15 per cent increase in volume growth, which CSIRO expects from using improved tree seeds (IGP 2001).

CSIRO also anticipates developing predictive models for "other major plantation species", and argues that "such a capability will assist in the successful growth of plantations, enabling higher yields from the forests [sic] planted and greater carbon sequestration in the longer term" (IGP 2001) Even assuming plantations are useful in absorbing carbon dioxide, the logic is flawed – higher yield plantations make no difference if the trees are cut after five years to produce short-lived commodities like woodchips, pulp and paper. Similarly, if local communities decide to cut down the trees for their own use or in order to return the land to its previous use, any carbon absorption would be lost.

Australia funded another project in Vietnam, in the Long Xuyen Quadrangle, near the border with Cambodia in the Mekong delta. The project started in 1991. In order to avoid breaching the US-led trade and aid embargo with Vietnam, Australia funded the project through the UN-backed Mekong Secretariat, then based in Bangkok. The project aimed to investigate the potential of reforesting 70,000 hectares of seasonally flooded acid sulphate soils.

Initially, the project planned to plant eucalyptus "for commercial wood production" and melaleuca "to address environmental issues" (Mekong Secretariat 1991: 105). The project established research trials including eucalyptus, acacia and melaleuca working with local communities (Carew-Reid et al 1999: 97). Villagers were employed to help establish the trial plantations, improving the popularity of the project locally.

The three year project was extended by two years and finished in 1996. According to Scott Poynton, an Australian forester who worked on the project, by 1996 "successful models had been developed that were environmentally, socially, technically and economically appropriate to the Quadrangle's unique inundating acid sulphate soils environment" (Carew-Reid et al 1999: 97). However, since 1996, nothing more has happened and many of the trial plantations established have been cut down. Poynton gives several reasons for this failure to follow up the project: "The project was located in the deep Delta region, far removed from the main action in Ha Noi, and remote from where people normally think of when they consider Vietnam's urgent forestry issues. . . . few people in MARD actually new about the project at the time and even fewer would recall it now. . . . Donors failed to catch on to the exciting work of the project. Perhaps its outputs – a model – were too scanty for meaningful advertising" (Carew-Reid et al 1999: 97).

The Dutch government part-funded an ADB-Vietnam Forestry Sector Project which started in 1998. The project aims to carry out reforestation and natural forest regeneration, allocation of forest land to households and making forest protection agreements, agroforestry, improving agricultural production and income generation on non-forest land and improving village infrastructure. The project works in 50 communes in Gia Lai, Phu Yen, Quang Tri and Thanh Hoa provinces (Salmi et al 1999: 114).

The Netherlands has taken a lead role in negotiations among international aid agencies on the Five Million Hectare Reforestation Programme.

In 1997, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) granted equipment and technical assistance to Vietnam for plantation development in the northwest of the country (Sizer 2000: 8).

In 2001, a US$6 million, Japanese government-funded project started in Quang Nam province, aimed at planting 4,000 hectares in coastal areas (Saigon Times 9 March 2001).

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