Knowing what matters to local people helps governments, decision-makers and development organizations tailor their management decisions on land use so that both forests and people benefit.

CIFOR has been collaborating with Tropenbos International Vietnam in Hue province to collect data about local people’s perspectives on land use. Thirty years after the war in Vietnam, evidence of the decades-long conflict is still evident in Hue’s landscape. Most of the natural forests around Hue are still recovering, with considerably more younger than older growth, possibly due to the chemicals used during the conflict.

Some of Hue’s healthy forest is in the protected Phong Dien Nature Reserve. In an attempt to safeguard the reserve, the government has encouraged people living nearby to pursue agricultural rather than forestry livelihoods. Locals are banned from collecting timber in the reserve and are no longer allowed to pursue traditional shifting cultivation practices.

As a consequence, the local people’s knowledge of the forest and its livelihood opportunities is rapidly disappearing. According to CIFOR biologist, Piia Koponen, local knowledge of how to use many plants and trees is decreasing.

“While assessing local knowledge during plot sampling, we discovered that a lot of plants didn’t have any known use for the local people, and the remaining uses were mostly linked to cattle feeding,” Koponen says.

Her sentiment is shared by CIFOR ethno-botanist Manuel Boissière, who says the local people seem to no longer have any deep affinity for the forest.
“Besides their declining knowledge of the names and uses of plants, local people seem to have lost interest in forest issues. This is partly because they’re not allowed to use the forest and have no say in its management. Even potentially damaging issues like illegal logging raise little reaction from them,” Boissière says.

CIFOR and Tropenbos hope their findings will help government officials better understand the importance of allowing people to use the forest and be involved in its management.

The decreasing level of interest in the forest also coincides with increasing pressure from rubber and acacia plantations. The government allocates local people land for plantations to assist them with livelihood needs. But to rely solely on plantations is like putting all the local villagers’ eggs in one basket. A sudden drop in rubber prices could impact severely on local people’s welfare. And because they have lost much of their traditional knowledge of the forest and its plants, and don't have legal permission to use the forest, they will be extremely hampered in collecting forest products to supplement their livelihoods.

In their efforts to better understand local perceptions of the landscape, CIFOR organized a series of group discussions in the village of Khe Tran. According to CIFOR’s Imam Basuki, the session proved very popular with local villagers.

“The people showed great interest in taking part in the management of the conservation area. They made it very clear they’d like to use the reserve to collect timber for their own use, so that they don’t have to buy wood for their furniture. They also expressed interest in working as guards with the reserve’s protection unit,” Basuki says.

The project’s research data will be shared with the local people so they are better equipped in their negotiations over land-use. The key findings will also be shared with decision makers to encourage them to take into account local perceptions regarding land use and to foster greater local participation in land planning issues that affect their livelihoods.