On 29 August 2006, two recently completed pilots on benefit sharing in community forest management (CFM) were evaluated during a workshop in Buon Ma Thuot City. The pilots were carried out in the context of the GTZ-supported project Rural Deve­lopment Dak Lak (RDDL)[i] in cooperation with the provincial Department of Agriculture & Rural Deve­lopment (DARD). The participants of the workshop represented the various stakeholders from the forest sector four central highland provinces and from the Forest and Legal Departments of the Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development (MARD).

Prior to the workshop, a delegation from MARD, headed by the Vice-Minister Hua Duc Nhi, visited T’Ly, one of the two pilot villages in Ea Sol Commu­ne of Ea H’Leo District. The vil­lagers presented their forest management plans and their own experience on how village forests can be protected and managed sustainably. They al­so presented the results from the pilots on harvesting and sharing of benefits, which are the first of their kind in Vietnam.

From a forest block of 143 ha, the T’Ly villagers legally har­vested almost 370 m³ of timber. The timber was auc­tioned just a few days before the visit and returned a total of VND 616 Mio., i.e. € 31,000.-. Accounting for logging costs, taxes and levies, a net income of VND 283 Mio., i.e. € 14,000.-, remains, which will be used for forest and village development to benefit all 123 households in the village. In Cham, the other pilot village, some 63 m³ of timber were harvested as construction material to built houses for 5-6 ethnic minority families. With a forest area of 1127 ha in T’Ly and 1804 ha in Cham, the villagers left no doubt on their side that the new possibility to mange the forest and receive immediate returns encourages and enables them to better protect their forests.

The visitors took this as encouraging for the entire province. With a forest area of over 600,000 ha and most of the 250,000 people of the local ethnic mino­rity population living in rural areas close to the fo­rests, the provincial leadership recognises the need to involve them more. Until the end of 2010, the province therefore plans to allocate up to 100,000 ha to respective households, user groups and villages.

For the past three years, the Forest Department under DARD, the staff of the district sections for forest development and protection and the experts of RDDL had worked together with the villagers to develop forest management and harvesting plans. The plans are based on sustainable forest models, which establish the critical stock of trees within cer­tain diameter classes for specific forest types and management objectives. To ensure a sustainable fo­rest management, timber must only be harvested if the number of trees exceeds these critical levels.

However, the missing link to implement the plans was a feasible regulation on benefit sharing provi­ding sufficient incentive especially for the ethnic mi­nority villagers. Since October 2005, DARD and its Forestry Consultative Working Group has coopera­ted with RDDL to develop detailed technical and administrative guidelines for harvesting and sharing of benefits between communities and the state. Starting with the existing regulations on CFM and benefit sharing (Decisions 178/304) they introduced sustainable forest models as the guiding principle. Each step in the process from tree selection to sale or use of the harvested timber is outlined in detail with responsibilities for implementation and monitoring clearly assigned. The distribu­tion of benefits from the har­vested timber includes taxes, levies for commune forestry administration and the share of the resulting village fund for forest and village development. The actual piloting began in May 2006.

The workshop participants agreed that the tested concept is feasible and most suitable for community forest management in the Central Highlands. They recommended to further simplify the technical guide­lines to be more understandable for ethnic minority groups. They also suggested concrete simplifica­tions in the administrative procedures related to the approval and monitoring of timber harvesting.

DARD declared to integrate the guidelines into the existing proposal for a community forest manage­ment guideline, which covers forest land allocation, the establishment of village forest protection and development regulations, the preparation of forest management plans, the harvesting of timber as well as the sharing of respective benefits. The proposal will be submitted to PPC for application in the Province. In addition, MARD has expressed great interest to utilise it as basis for a national CFM-guideline which is currently under preparation.