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Traditional Natural Resources Management Strategies of the MNong in Lak District, Dak Lak Province
Report on Field Study
by
Luu Hung and Markus Vorpahl
June 1997
On behalf of:
Deutsche Gesellschaft für
Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH and
Mekong River Commission Secretariat
CONTENTS
Foreword and Acknowledgements ii
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Demands to the Survey 1
1.2 Methodology 2
2 MNong Culture 5 Page 2 of 39
2.1 General Features, Demographic Structure of the Villages 5
2.2 Settlement History, Changes and Present Status 8
2.3 Generalities on Authority, Decision Making Structures and Conflict Resolution 12
3 Traditional Natural Resources Management 13
3.1 Social Institutions and Traditional Natural Resources Management 14
3.1.1 The Village as Center of Social Life 14
3.1.2 The Role of Village Elders 16
3.1.3 The Role of "The Founder of the Village" and Community Land Ownership 17
3.1.4 Land Distribution and Land Ownership 19
3.2 Use and Conservation of Resources 21
3.2.1 Cultivation Conditions and Strategies 24
3.2.2 Timber "Fostering" 27
3.2.3 Popular Believes as Factors of Conservation 27
4 Natural Resources Degradation 29
4.1 Experience and Perceived Causes 29
4.2 Proposed Actions 32
5 External Intervention 35
5.1 Sustainable Management of Resources in the Lower Mekong Basin 36
5.2 Government Programs 37
5.2.1 Reforestation Program 327 37
5.2.2 Poverty Alleviation Program and Credits 38
5.2.3 Land Allocation 39
6 Recommendations 40
6.1 Reawakening of Traditional Natural Resources Management Strategies in the Project 41
6.2 Decision Making Strategies to be Involved in Land Use Planning and the Project 42
6.3 Recommendations on Confidence Building and Project Strategies 44
7 Research in Similar Socio-cultural Environments 46
7.1 Process Documentation 46
7.2 Replicability 47
Appendices 50
A Glossary and Abbreviations 50
B List of Forest Products collected in Ba Yang 52
C Relevant Literature 53 Page 3 of 39
D Working Schedule 54
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Traditional MNong-style house for one household 7
Figure 2: Conceptual changes of land use in recent history 11
Figure 3a: Cultivation and residential land in Yie Yuk 22
Figure 3b: Cultivation and residential land in Lac Dong 22
FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank all people who helped us to achieve the aims of our research. Our special thanks go to the villagers of the places visited, especially those who let us stay overnight in their houses and shared their rice with us, and all the others who spent their time talking and giving us precious information. Another very warm Thank You goes to Mei Luan, our interpreter, who spent her time with us and was of most valuable help for both of us, translating simultaneously from MNong into Vietnamese and French. She was most helpful especially when talking to people with little experience with outsiders or who did not speak Vietnamese, and she provided some insights of MNong culture. We also thank the project staff who invited us to conduct this research and supported us while we where on site, and who introduced us to the local administration, cleared the way and arranged for the foreigner the possibility to stay overnight in the villages. There are too many to name personally, but everybody who worked with us is included in our gratitude.
When talking about "We", this is to talk about Luu Hung and Markus Vorpahl, the anthropologists. When talking about "them", "the villagers", "the MNong", this indicates the population of the nine villages visited, the "Target Group". If we want to speak about the MNong in general or other groups, this is indicated in the text.
Another problem is the use of original terms. As anthropologists, we prefer to use "emic", or "insider" expressions. That results in an abundance of non-English words in the text. They are explained, at least roughly, at their first occurrence, and most are included in an annexed glossary. For the MNong language there is no generally recognized transcription system, so we use either phonetical notations leaning to the Vietnamese way of pronouncing written language, or to the notation used by French authors.
When writing about tradition , we are generally referring to circumstances considered more or less stable until the arrival of the French colonial administration. These have changed since then, as they might have changed always during the course of history – modern anthropology considers tradition mainly as construction, and the idea of unchangeable traditional culture is considered as a concept dating from times when non-western societies where considered as societies "without history". As in all societies, traditional rules are no laws, they allow for many exceptions and have to be considered more as imagined ideal types of social structures and behavior. This leads to the use of the "ethnographic present", the use of the present tense even when writing about the past. This may include descriptions of social behavior, of cultivation or other techniques or now obsolete rules. All these concepts are part of the legacy of the MNong society, and many of them are, if not practiced any more, present in the spirit and the social organization. It is very difficult to know exactly which of the rules are no longer in vigor and almost forgotten, which are valid in the minds of the MNong but overruled by modern laws or society, and which have still to be considered "alive". So we use the present tense for nearly all descriptions, and the actual condition of the discussed item is not represented by this grammatical category. We are conscious that this is criticable in social science and especially anthropology, as it enhances the impression of "people without history" and reduces exactness. Due to the fuzziness of the farther MNong history and owing to the readability of this report, we see it as the best solution.
1 INTRODUCTION
The research was conducted between June 3 and June 26 on the pilot sites of the Sustainable Management of Page 4 of 39
Resources in the Lower Mekong Basin (SMRLMB) Project of the Mekong River Commission. The project is active in the four riparian countries Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam.
The project has selected three pilot sites that total nine villages in the District of Lak, Dak Lak Province, in Tay Nguyen, the Central Highlands of Vietnam. The rivers in the project area are tributaries to the lower Mekong River. Two of these sites, three and four villages, are in Dak Phoi Commune, one with two villages is in Krong No Commune. The two sites in Dak Phoi are adjacent, but Dak Phoi and Krong No are separated by a hilly area. Walking through the hills is possible and exchange takes place – we met people from Dak Phoi villages in Krong No.
Two ethnologists went on site: Luu Hung, Head of the Department for Research and Collection on the Central Highlands at the Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi, and Markus Vorpahl, Ph.D. student at the Institute of Ethnology, University of Hamburg, Germany. The aim of the research was to identify and analyze social and cultural structures determining the use of natural resources by the MNong ethnic minority resident on the pilot sites, and their significance for the project. Special attention was given to the possible reawakening of some of these structures or parts of them to support project activities.
1.1 Demands to the Survey
The project considered it necessary for its work to know more about the socio-cultural bases of the use of land and other natural resources (natural resources were defined as soil, vegetation and water), or Traditional Natural Resources Management Strategies. Therefore, two ethnologists, one Vietnamese and one German, were asked to provide the necessary background information: "systematic documentation of decision making structures and conflict resolution mechanism with respect to land use and NRM" and "potential of resurrection of Traditional Natural Resources Management Strategies through the project" .
This led to several separate main aspects of the survey:
identification and analysis of the Traditional Natural Resources Management Strategies and its social and cultural embedding, analysis of awareness, perceived causes and proposed solutions for environmental degradation, elaboration of possibilities to integrate traditional structures into project strategies and further land use planning (for details, see Terms of Reference).
The first aspect demanded the identification of decision making structures, traditional ways of land distribution, regulations of access to land and other forest resources, and conflict resolution. This demands the description of domains of the natural environment perception: the definition of forest and other concepts according to the understanding of the group.
The second aspect demanded the identification of changes in the natural environment, the identification of perceived reasons and consequences of these changes for the Target Group and for the environment, and asking for solutions they consider feasible and having a positive impact on the environment and their living conditions.
The third aspect demanded a combination of propositions pronounced by the villagers, and results of our own analysis based on the situation perceived by us, i.e., the results of the first two aspects, and information added by the project staff.
1.2 Methodology
The different questions to be answered made it necessary to collect information on three different levels:
oral history, by discussion with old people, traditional and modern rules, by interviews with traditional and modern leaders, today’s implementation of these rules, by participant observation and interviews.
For the study we went to the villages; met with focus groups and conducted in-depth interviews. Every village on the pilot sites was visited and studied between one and four days. The interviews were conducted during the morning or in the afternoon with members of the focus groups showing interest in working with us, having spare time or being able to shift their work plan. Several times it happened that we went to meetings, but the people had other tasks and did not show up. The time we spent in the area the farmers were very busy, as they have to weed and care for the rice in the forest fields. Therefore they did not have much time to talk. In Page 5 of 39
order to understand more about their work, we visited the fields and the forest where they were working.
We stayed most of the time overnight in the villages. We learned about the conditions of living, the working schedule and the cultivation and household work by living together and talking with the villagers. We got a good overview of the situation, and it helped to approach the people. They did not only see us as foreign intruders, but as people sharing their life for some days. In addition, it saved time normally lost through travelling. We were on site when the people got up, had breakfast and organized their day, and we still were there when they came back from the fields, had their evening chats and went to bed.
We were always allowed to stay in the houses of the village headmen or their deputies, who as members of the modern administration in the villages where one of our focus groups. Beside responding to our questions and taking part in the interviews, they provided us with statistical data on the villages. The other people we met were old people as sources of traditional knowledge and oral history, mainly old men who have the status of "village elders" or traditional village headmen, gìa làng in Vietnamese, uhraing bon in MNong. Others were household heading men and women. This selection of interview partners covered most of the preliminary selected focus groups, as there were:
elderly people of both sexes, people identified as taking part in traditional decision making processes, modern decision makers, for example modern village headmen, household and family heads, old and young, we choose women as additional focus group. Although they did take part in other discussions, they were always sitting in the back and are easily overheard. So we invited women-only groups on several occasions, which included old and young women together.
All interviews were non-formalized, open to all, open-ended, without fixed questions, i.e., more as open group discussions than as formal interviews. We invited between two and five people, and there were always some persons coming and going. Some were just looking and hearing, but many others were also talking, discussing views or contradicting the "respected" persons we were interviewing. So the information collected did not only come from the formal interview partners, but also from unknown farmers dropping in and sharing their views with us. Of special help where the wives of the headmen, who often knew at least as much as their husbands: as the MNong are a matrilineal society, many uhraing bon accessed to their position through marriage into the leading clan in a village.
Information collected in interviews was cross-checked with other information gathered by field and household visits and by participant observation. There was informal talk to people on other occasions too, providing additional knowledge. Some previous knowledge of Hung on Traditional Natural Resources Management Strategies in the central Highlands was used to estimate the substance of the information gathered.
Questions were asked to the group as a whole, but everybody was encouraged to answer according to his/her own opinion. If people seemed to have contradicting opinions, but were not able to articulate them due to the group's structure, we tried to help them by focusing for some time on them, talking to them to prove our interest in everybody’s ideas. This helped cross-check information and establish a deeper understanding of the items discussed as well as, on an important meta-level, of dynamics and processes inside the community, of decision-making and the creation of consensus and community self-awareness. Several questions on the same item or repeated, changing questions were used to cross-check and to "dig" for information that could not be gathered from the beginning.
The methodology described above results – other than a PRA exercise – in an inflow of information, some of it concerning the questions put forward in the Terms of Reference, and other very interesting, but not directly concerning Traditional Natural Resources Management Strategies. Filtering the different levels of ideas, information, of concepts, was part of our work.
Due to many changes of location and the specific characters of the problems studied, participant observation played a minor role in our methods. We made several field visits and took part in food-collecting missions, but we never had the occasion to actually take part in clearing of land, the distribution of land or other decision making processes, as these had happened before our arrival. We were thus restricted to information on Traditional Natural Resources Management Strategies collected by interviewing and talking with people, and could observe the results and techniques used to achieve them by visiting fields in the forest. Our living in the villages nevertheless allowed us to understand from a participant point of view many of the difficulties and hardships encountered in the everyday life of the MNong people in the project area and observe their ways of problem resolution. We could take part in at least one minor feast and some "jar opening".
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2 MNONG CULTURE
The villages in the project area are almost only inhabited by MNong. They have been residing for a long time in the central highlands, mainly in the South of Dak Lak Province, the project area. On the pilot sites we were confronted with two different subgroups of MNong:
a. In most villages there live MNong Gar, b. in Buon Nam, Dak Phoi Commune, live MNong Cil.
There are other MNong Cil villages in the area, but this is the only one in the project villages. The differences between MNong Gar and MNong Cil are of no importance for this research, as they share the same language, culture, social structure and the same economy of shifting cultivation. The different identity nevertheless makes Buon Nam a village constantly considered by its inhabitants, as much as by outsiders, as not like the rest. The situation is getting more complicated as the ancestral land of Buon Nam is one day’s walk away. Now the village is located on land which belonged traditionally to other villages, so that they are seen as intruders, and for every extension or exchange of land the have to ask the neighboring villages.
Close to the MNong villages, but outside the project site, is a village of Thai and Nung minority people from the North of Vietnam. They named their village after their province of origin, Cao Bang.
Inside some MNong villages, there are a few other ethnic people, husbands or wives who married into MNong families, or whole families. There are Ede, Giarai, Hre, Co, Thai and Kinh . For MNong villages this is a recent phenomenon, as the villages are traditionally homogenous and, as described below, have a strong interior cohesion and a strong concept of traditional land ownership based on village and clan adhesion. In one case there is a family of Kinh living in a village, in Buon Lieng Ke, Dak Phoi Commune. This family bought land there and uses it in the same way as their MNong neighbors, but also owns a small shop. Other Kinh shops in Dak Phoi Commune are owned by people from the District town Lien Son, not constantly living in the villages. In Krong No Commune there are more Kinh families living in the villages. They are all shop-owners, bartering food with their MNong neighbors, buying forest products (rattan, different kinds of bamboo and bamboo shoots, snakes) from them and catering for the truck drivers on the national road passing through Krong No. Although these families might have lived in the villages since more than ten years, they are considered "temporary" residents by the MNong.
2.1 General Features, Demographic Structure of the Villages
The main distinctive feature of MNong culture is its matrilineality and matrilocality, i.e. the heritage line goes down the matrilateral side: every child belongs to the clan of its mother, and the family land and other inherited belongings are handed down from the mother to the eldest daughter. Husbands come after marriage to live with their wives, but they still carry their own name; they do not become members of the clan of their wives. Generally marriages take place inside the villages, and there are very few outsiders who marry into MNong clans. MNong clans are exogamous, that means, nobody is allowed to marry or have any sexual relation with somebody bearing the same clan-name. This extends also on allied clans of "sworn friendship", fixed by the exchange of buffalo sacrifices. Still today, women have an important role in decision making in the family and in the village (see Gebert, 1997, passim). There are no residential restrictions for the clans in the villages: families of all clans are living together.
Not withstanding the matrilineal descendent, the husband becomes the household head. Men play the most important role in decision making processes inside the village. In village meetings, men sit in the front and talk to each other, while women sit in the background. In the traditional houses they sit under the rice barn, in the kitchen area, while the men gather in the guest area, where the roof is higher and the air less smoky. Nevertheless, women are very important in decision making, as they have a strong position inside the family and are also heard in village meetings.
Traditional village heads are almost always men: the only two cases of women in this role we heard of where very talented women who inherited their husbands place after death. Ideally the new uhraing bon is the son of the eldest sister of the former one, but in many cases it is just the oldest male member of the clan still able to work and who is considered apt for the job. He has to have some knowledge of clan and village history, to know how to rule out conflicts, and he has to be able to make himself understood by everybody, being an eloquent speaker. Village chiefs in the modern structures are always men.
The MNong villages in the project area, both MNong Gar and MNong Cil, have the same system of economy. They rely mainly on a subsistence economy of rotational shifting cultivation, gathering of forest products, and since 1975 more and more on fields in the valley bottom. All the villages share the same Traditional Natural Page 7 of 39
Resources Management Strategies. The monetary economy is not very developed. There are only few cash- crops and except for some households the subsistence farming is much more important. All households, even the better-off, cultivate rice and vegetables for subsistence.
The traditional MNong villages, up to French times and some time after 1975, consisted of several long houses of up to 40 m length. In each house lived between two and five households. Every household consisted of a nuclear family, parents and children until the age of marriage or the arrival of the first proper children. Then the house was subdivided once more, so that the different households (or stoves, as each family was an independent economic unit, cooking by itself and having its own rice barn inside the house) in one house normally had close paternal relationship ties. It rarely happened that households sharing one house were not relatives. Traditionally and today, a household and a nuclear family are almost always identical.
Figure 1: Traditional MNong-style house for one household
Today the villages in the project area consist of 32 to 85 households. There are only a few houses with two stoves in the project area. The families live mostly in single houses, one household per house, in a small homegarden. The houses in the villages are of mixed architecture: some of the villages consist mostly of houses in Ede-style, some mostly of Kinh -style houses. There are still many traditional MNong-houses, made of woven bamboo walls with thatched roof and floors of raw earth.
According to the statistics provided by the village cadres, the population of the villages is as follows:
Table 1: Population statistics *these are estimations of the local cadres
Village Dung Tlong Nam Lieng Du Ma Yie Yuk Bu Yuk Lac Ba Ke Dong Yang
House- 62 55 63 33 46 85 32 57 77 holds
Persons 353 338 327 200* 221 500* 152 357 420
In the nine villages live a total of 510 households with 2868 persons, out of which 504 households with 2832 persons are MNong. The households have an average of 5,6 heads, varying between two and ten.
2.2 Settlement History, Changes and Present Status
The settlements in Dak Phoi and Krong No Communes share a history of forced resettlement on at least two occasions. Some where resettled by the French military between 1949 and 1954, all suffered either resettlement in Êp , strategic hamlets initiated by the US Army, or evacuation into the forest between 1962 and 1975, and all where resettled 1975 or 1976 in their actual living places. Between 1976 and 1984 the structure Page 8 of 39
of their villages on the actual places was changed again: Traditionally, MNong lived in long houses with two to five stoves, nuclear families (parents and unmarried or recently married children without own children) sharing the space. During Resettlement and Fixed Cultivation, §Þnh canh §Þnh c , the families were given plots of land, which they were supposed to use as home gardens, building one -family houses there.
The MNong people in the area have been going through a long period of enormous changes. In recent history, major changes for the MNong (and for the other people in Tay Nguyen) started with the French colonization. At that time, they were for the first time integrated in an administrative structure above village level. They were to join the army, to provide corvee labor, etc. They had to register and pay taxes. Taxes had to be paid in cash, so they had either to trade or to work on plantations.
Other big changes came after the beginning of the 60s with the war in their area. All nine villages had to change their residence: some moved deeper into the forest to co-operate with the resistance, others were concentrated into "strategic hamlets". Some villages split, with some families moving into the forest, while the other families were displaced into the Êp . The overall situation did not change until 1975. Only two villages, Lieng Ke and Bu Yuk, spent the whole time of the war in the forest. Lac Dong and Ba Yang went in 1962 into the forest, but most of the villagers were taken out of the forest and brought into the Êp between 1963 and 1966. Almost all of Du Ma, Tlong and Yie Yuk were concentrated in the Êp since 1960 - 1962. Of the villages of Nam and Dung only a small part was in the Êp , while the rest went into the forest. The following table lists the most important changes the MNong Gar society was subject to at that time:
Table 2: Changes in living from the traditional way of life during the war
Traditionally From 1965-1975
The village changes its place inside its own The village has to move far away, out of its territory territory
Everybody lives on the land of his own village, People live on foreign land, people from different with his fellow villagers villages live together
The village moves only after diseases, The village has to move according to the war: sometimes if the fields are too far resettled into the Êp , or going into the forest
Not only the people in the forest had to move constantly during the fighting, but the people in the Êp were shifted around too. For example, the people from Yie Yuk were forced into an Êp near Lak in 1960, after some time they had to go to another in Krong No, and then they were brought to one in Dak Nue where they stayed for the rest of the war. These disruptions during the 15 years of the war, e.g., displacement into the Êp or following combat troops around in the forest, caused for the MNong Gar in the area multiple shocks: They lost their social structure, they lost their houses and settlement places, and they lost their wealth, mainly their buffaloes and other livestock. Therefore, an established "suspicion" amongst this group against any outside intervention is an understandable constraint for the project.
From 1975 until today, resettlement policy and the socio-economic development of the outside world have penetrated into every aspect of life in all villages and – again – brought continuing changes. There are some programs with support from the government, like §Þnh canh §Þnh c , to stabilize the lives of the minorities. Recently, the 327 program started, trying to protect the forest and reduce the shifting cultivation. The Poverty Alleviation Program tries to help people in difficulties to find an economic base for living, etc. The outlook of the villages changed. The plants cultivated, livestock and farming methods have changed according to the accelerated integration into an outside economy and demands of efficiency. In the society and the culture there are some rather big changes perceived by the villagers:
The villages are closely connected to the outside. Villagers can go to other places, and outsiders can access the villages easily. Krong No is rather far from the district town and markets, but the two villages there are close to the national road. Seven of the villages are settled permanently on land belonging to other villages. Only Dung and Bu Yuk reside on their own land. This means that village land is shared between several villages living together: Lac Dong and Ba Yang are settled on land formerly belonging to Dlay Bang. Tlong, Nam, Dung, Yie Yuk and a whole village of Tay people share the land of Dung. The villages of Lieng Ke, Du Ma, Dung, Nam, etc. are still homogenous, and people from only one Page 9 of 39
village live together. In Lac Dong, Ba Yang and Bu Yuk, residents originating from different villages are gathered together in one village. In Ba Yang, there are 75 MNong Gar households from nine different villages:
Dak Bok 11 households,
Lac Dong 30 households,
Di Lung 5 households,
Sar 5 households,
Dlay Bang 9 households,
Khang 10 households,
Yu 2 households,
Yrai 2 households,
Rchai B 1 households.
Every village is subject to a multitude of influences due to its relations with the outside world, mainly with Kinh people. A mix between old and new is developing, leading to a loss of traditional culture without acquiring a new standard. The living standard is still very low. Food shortage occurs regularly and is lasting up to six months, between February and April and between August and October. Families with a shortage from one to three months are considered "poor", four months and over qualify them as "hungry". In all villages, there are more poor people than better-off farmers. The interior of the houses, the lack of decoration and furniture, as well as the foodstuff, insufficient and without variety (especially no meat and only dried fish) reflect the poverty of the people. The villagers would like to develop like the Kinh or Tay, but they do not see any immediate solution for their situation. Most important for them, their food and cash shortage has to be solved. There is still little communication with the outside world and little information entering at a slow pace. Even village heads have only access to one newspaper a week, at the weekly meeting in the commune. They can read it in the office (Krong No) or take it home to read (Dak Phoi), but they read little and slow, or are illiterate. Very few TV sets are to be seen, and the few people who own a radio or cassette player are often too poor to buy the necessary batteries. Although Dak Phoi will be connected to the electricity grid, few people will be able to afford the connection fee. This discrepancy of information disadvantages the MNong in their interaction with the outside world. The MNong economy is since long based on barter rather than on cash. Though the system of exchanges based on money is necessary for their contacts with the outside world, they still have a lot of difficulties with it. Today, Kinh merchants living in or passing through the villages are their only trading partners. The MNong are forced to sell to them under price, and they are not aware of the possibilities to bargain for reasonable prices, nor do they have access to an outside distribution system. For example, for the sale of one Kg of corn to visiting traders, they are forced to accept prices of 500 VND, even 400 VND, although the market price might be 800 VND.
Life in the villages underwent changes in the last 40 years. These changes, mainly the repeated shifting of residence and the loss of life stability that was part of the closed system of residence and shifting cultivation, led also to a loss in the stability of time and space. For example: Before, the settlement and the fields were inside the village territory; the space was closed, and the MNong Gar circulated inside this territory. According to Condominas (1957), in former times the years were named after the toponym of the place used to cultivate in that year. As they always cultivate the same sites after 12, 15 or more years, this leads to a circular time, with two circular movements intertwined: one is the annual repetition of the tasks in the field, the other the repetition over the rotational cultivation period.
Now, the fields are separates from the settlement and the village territory. Some are out of the village near the settlement area, some are in the valley away from the settlement, and most villages still use the ancestral fields in the old village territory, now further away. This changes the orientation in space completely. The time, on the other hand, is no longer circular, as the rotational cycle is no longer valid if the use of forest field is forbidden. The repetitive time circle is broken up, the time becomes linear, only including the annual repetition of the agricultural tasks. Page 10 of 39
We have thus two important concepts of orientation for every individual and society broken up through the repeated resettlements:
the space is no longer closed, as they live outside the ancestral territory and are no longer surrounded by the fields, but live on the periphery of these or far away, the time frame is no longer circular, as there is no longer the possibility to use the cultivation fields, rotational or not (it still includes the annual repetitions, though there seems land by the leaders).
Figure 2: Conceptual changes of land use in recent history
During wartime this changes happened abruptly, so that since 1975 their life has stabilized, even though the traditional concepts are no longer valid. This experience of being subject to changes they are not able to influence might have led to the fatalism visitors sense in the villages. Breaking up this fatalism, building confidence of the target group in future development, must be an important step and poses challenge for the project.
The project should consider to integrate the traditional system of field distribution and rotation into lowland agriculture to allow the villagers to use their traditional strategies in this new context. This would re-integrate cultivation and settlement into one space, allow to reinstall a traditional time orientation and thereby strengthen the self-confidence of the target group.
2.3 Generalities on Authority, Decision Making Structures and Conflict Resolution
To define the decision making structures relevant for Traditional Natural Resources Management Strategies we have to pay attention to the conception of "traditional". As described in the previous chapter, there have been a lot of political changes in the past history of Vietnam affecting directly the MNong Gar society and its structures. Many features termed nowadays as "traditional" were first described as such by French sources. They wrote down Coutumiers , collections of customary laws, for almost every minority group under their jurisdiction.
Albert Maurice (1996), himself an ancient officer of the French colonial army, notes that the role of the village elder, the traditional village headman, is exaggerated in the MNong-Coutumier . According to him, the knowledge of social structures of the Ede minority influenced the ideas and the perception of MNong social Page 11 of 39
structures by the French author. He notes that the author of the most important Coutumier in the highlands, Léopold Sabatier, was a highly authoritarian man, who imposed his personal style in these customary laws (Maurice, 1996, p.200, 539-548). As this was the blueprint for the other Coutumiers in the highlands, it is difficult to prove if the position of the village elder Uhraing bon before French times was as strong as then and perceived today. All early sources tend to describe a much weaker position. After the multitude of changes, the Uhraing bon today is of major importance in all villages, but still his influence on the villagers depends largely on his reputation. If he is not respected, the people just do not listen to him: his power is valid mainly by the villagers’ authentication.
Besides codifying a set of traditional rules and giving legal value to it, the French colonial administration introduced modern leaders. They were appointed by the administration. While the traditional leaders where only responsible towards the villagers for their action – as the village was the only political institution traditionally recognized –, the modern leaders in village and canton (district) where only responsible towards their superiors. They had the formal power to overrule all decisions made by the traditional leaders. As they were always appointed among the villagers, it seems that normally there was little conflict between modern and traditional leaders in the village, where a co-operation of all leaders is necessary for both sides to work efficiently. On the level of the canton nevertheless, the lack of control led to the abuse of power, as these leaders were not at all controlled by any other instance. In Krong No this lead to the killing of the then leader of the canton , and reactions like this seem to have happened quite regularly in the past.
The two levels of authority, modern and traditional, are still in effect today. There is the modern head of the village and his deputy, as in French times, and one or several traditional leaders, as described below. The different village heads have to work together to make the village run. As the modern village cadres live in the village, they are to a certain extent subject to social control by their fellow villagers. Nevertheless, if it comes to an abuse of power, for example excessive attribution of to be no controlling instance. This can affect land allocation processes negatively and therefore the work of the project. The MNong society is not an egalitarian society at all. In the villages there have always been rich and poor people, influential and less important people, so that the existence of leadership in the community does not pose problems to the village solidarity.
There is no codification of traditional rules any more. The village elder and the modern leaders decide together with the villagers, according to modern laws, if known, and customary rules. The latter are remembered by the old persons, but there is no longer a common knowledge with long recitations of ancestral wisdom. This was lost when the last people remembering it died, not having transferred their knowledge to younger ones. These rules and recitations were very important for the regulation of interior conflicts.
All conflicts had to be ruled out by the village leader, by mutual arrangement or by inflicting a punishment to the side considered responsible for causing trouble. Since French times, conflicts inside the village can be brought to higher institutions, if inside the village there is no satisfactory solution possible. Still, the MNong prefer to rule out conflicts among themselves. Besides violation of standard rules on social behavior, like the interdiction of killing or mutilating other, stealing or damaging their property etc., and formerly accusations of witchcraft, there where land ownership conflicts and conflicts with other villages that had to be resolved. Land disputes inside the village happened apparently not very often, as the land rights were public knowledge. Conflicts with other villages were arranged through discussions between the village leaders, but could lead to armed conflicts. Today, they are regulated between the village leaders, but these tend to ask for assistance by the Peoples Committee of the commune too.
3 TRADITIONAL NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT
The life of the MNong Gar in the project area is based on the forest. The forest is the (natural) resource traditionally used and exploited by them. It is used mainly in two ways: by rotational shifting cultivation, producing rice, vegetables and some other plants, and by collecting non-cultivated forest products for food, construction and sale. In the traditional MNong society, concepts such as "Natural Resources Management" or "Strategies" in the western meaning were not explicitly formulated, as they saw themselves as integral part of their natural environment, and the Traditional Natural Resources Management Strategies were part of their lives. They were conscious of the importance of the forest for their live and aware of their interaction with the natural environment. There were complex systems and strategies to maintain and protect the forest and the forest land. On the other hand, there were no protection mechanisms directly concerning water, as water is abundant and experience shows that water resources are stable when the forest is protected.
All nine villages are situated in tropical forest with fertile soil, lots of forest products to gather and possibilities for hunting. They live on shifting cultivation, with rice as staple crop and main food supply. The fields are mostly Page 12 of 39
on steep slopes. Like other groups in the Central Highlands and in similar natural environments, they use "slash and burn" to prepare their fields, they cut the forest on former fields and burn the trees to prepare new fields. As all over Tay Nguyen, there are two seasons: the dry season from November to April and the rainy season from May to October. 85% of the annual rain fall in the rainy season, the most pouring down between July and September.
3.1 Social Institutions and Traditional Natural Resources Management
Since generations, MNong Gar live on shifting cultivation, cutting forest to clear land for cultivation and planting upland rice on steep slopes. They both clear forest and protect it, exploit land and let it recover. They use a reasonable and efficient system to manage their natural resources, adapted to the local conditions. The strategies described below demonstrate an awareness of the necessity to manage forest and land properly. This awareness is part of their tradition and it is found in all of the studied villages, providing an important access to the spirit of the target group for the project in matters of natural resources management. Together with other factors it creates a social environment favorable to traditional or modern natural resources management strategies. Examples are the practice of community collaboration during cultivation, the solidarity and interior cohesion of the village, the mutual help between households, or the importance of traditional rules. Under the circumstances of low population density and a non-monetary economy, the traditional strategies are effective means to secure the living and maintain the natural environment . Rotational shifting cultivation and the controlled use of other forest products, i.e., the traditional resources management, based on long-term experience, has to be considered ecologically sustainable. However, present policies to "protect" forest areas and other external activities in Dak Phoi are partly responsible for the decrease of agricultural land available for shifting cultivation, thus generating a relative increase of population pressure.
3.1.1 The Village as Center of Social Life
The village bon is the center of the traditional MNong society, of the individual’s and the community’s life. Every village has three major natural, non-social constituents:
Forest, for fields and the exploitation for other subsistence purposes, Residential area, to build the village and to live, Water: underground water to drink and cook, river water for fishing.
Every village has its own territory that has to meet these basic requirements. The whole life of the people takes place inside the defined village territory. In former times, this territory was a large area, mainly of old forest. The territory has its stable frontiers with adjacent villages. These frontiers are normally along rivers and mountain ridges. They are well known to the villagers and respected by the people living in adjacent areas and other outsiders. We could collect leadership list of up to eight generations depth in some villages. According to the traditional leaders today, the village territory and the frontiers did not change since then. Traditionally, the territory was closed strictly to foreigners. It had legal value according to the customary laws and all violations of it were punished by the village community. All exploitation by outsiders was restricted and had to be sanctioned by the village. Today, only the installation of shifting cultivation fields and the cutting of big trees by outsiders is – theoretically – restricted and subject to punishment by the community as well as by the government.
Although living closely to the highly organized states of the Cham, the Khmer and the Kinh , and being in contact with traders from these societies coming into the mountains, in the MNong society the village was and is the highest political institution. In relations with the exterior and with each other, every village is an autonomous unit. The relations that govern the live inside the village are those between the village, the family and the clan. A number of different clans live together in every village. Each family is affected by its position in and its relation to the village and the clan. As in other traditional societies in Tay Nguyen and elsewhere, the clan has a clear structure and a clear position in the life of the individual, the family and the village. The families of the clan who opened the village territory, the "founding clan" of the village, play a major role in the village society.
The village owns the residential land as a community, whereas the fields in the forest are owned by each clan and each family. The ownership of the miir , the field for shifting cultivation, is stable and rests always with the owners, even if the fields are not used for cultivation. This ownership of ancestral land of the families was established long ago, and it is known to everybody what piece of land is owned by which family. The ownership of every piece of land is protected by the village rules. Land use right and land ownership are closely linked to adherence to the village.
The villagers not only have the right to cultivate in the village, on land owned by them, but to gather in the Page 13 of 39
forest on the village territory. The identity of village society and village land is characteristic for the MNong society. Every individual and every family has a "sacred" link to the village and the village territory. Every MNong has to be a member of a family, a clan and a village, and is subject to multiple relations with these entities. The personal behavior is supervised by other villagers. Formerly, nobody could survive outside the social, cultural and natural environment of the village. The homogeneity of the ethnic and cultural composition strengthened the cohesion of the village community. The village's stability was based on solidarity and on customary rules.
The traditional society before the 1960s had the morale and the internal power to protect the territory and to conserve the natural resources forest, soil and water, as this was considered necessary for their lives. Every village had its own set of rules on its scale, but the rules in all villages were similar. The rules and structures described below are therefore a condensation of what we heard in the different villages. The villagers shared the benefits of exploitation, the right to use and the responsibility to protect the natural resources on the village territory. The specific rules formulated by the villages to protect their natural resources are potential avenues to what is called "Traditional Natural Resources Management Strategies" by the project.
3.1.2 The Role of Village Elders
Every MNong village has a village elder. In some villages, there is only one, in others, two or three. If there are several village elders, one has a more important position than the others. He is the first or leading village elder. Uhraing bon , the "old of the village", is usually translated into Vietnamese as village owner, village head, village leader or village elder. There a different criteria for the selection of the village elders. They should be older than 50 years when chosen for this position, they should know the history and the customary rights of the village, and be eloquent speakers. They definitely need to have a good reputation in the village, and to be respected by the vast majority of the villagers. They should belong to an economically stable family of "better off" farmers. The Uhraing bon need not to be descendants of the founder of the village. The main criteria for this position are the personal capacities, which should be over average, and this should be acknowledged by the community The reputation has to be based on the person, not the clan. However, often they are Tem Teh Tem Brii (Village Founder, see following chapter 3.1.3) or husbands of these, and in many cases the position of Uhraing bon is inherited in the same clan.
The Uhraing bon is normally a man, and today this is the case in all villages in the project area. People remember that, 30 years ago, in the late 60s, in each of the villages of Lieng Ke and Tlong there was one very talented woman who inherited the position of Uhraing bon from her husband. In former times and today, the Uhraing bon is like the leader of a bird flock, primus inter pares , with strong influence, but not considered any different in every day live from the others. He has to go to his fields and do his work like everybody else, and has no direct economic advantages out of his position.
As long as he is respected, the villagers follow him strictly, and the importance of his role is reflected in the following duties:
Maintaining the interior peace of the village, protecting the traditional culture, settle cases of violation of traditional rules, land claims and other conflicts, organize and steer all community activities, the moving of the village, building of houses, festivals and sacrifices etc., settle affairs with other villages and outsiders.
The Uhraing bon co-ordinates with the Tem Teh Tem Brii , the other traditional leader, all activities regarding the management of natural resources. This includes the protection of the territory, the planning of the cultivation, the prevention of fires in the dry season, the organization of fire prevention during the burning of the fields. He punishes violations of customary rules regarding the forest and the fields. This includes indirect violations like "immoral behavior" (unmarried pregnancy, incest, adultery), which are feared to draw bad luck on the cultivation effort. The Uhraing bon plays a central role in the village, as he has responsibilities in the economic, social and cultural spheres of the village life, while the Tem Teh Tem Brii focuses on forest and land use. The responsibilities of the traditional leaders also include the natural resources management of the village. Uhraing bon and Tem Teh Tem Brii collaborate and co-ordinate their actions, each of them has his own charges and there are no contradictions. The Uhraing bon still is a respected person and plays a substantial role in community affairs. Village and party officials consult the Uhraing bon to coordinate their activities with the actions of the traditional leaders. In some cases he works not only together with them, but has considerable influence on them, especially if he is older, more experienced or better in business and with a good reputation in the village.
3.1.3 The Role of "The Founder of the Village" and Community Land Ownership Page 14 of 39
Land and forest ownership in the MNong area are of unlimited duration. There are two levels of land ownership: on one hand, land belongs to the village as village territory, on the other hand, each cultivation land belongs to a concrete clan and family. The lineage of the founder of the village is considered as owner of land and forest in the village. In the family actually representing this lineage, one person is authorized to manage the clan land. Due to matrilineality, this position is inherited via the daughter, niece, or sister, or to the brother and his descendants. The position of Tem Teh Tem Brii is in general held by a man. He should be someone who knows the history of the forest and land in the territory.
The lineage of the Tem Teh Tem Brii is supposed to be the descendants of the person founding the village, having cleared the first fields and built the first houses. In our study, we could gather some names between five and eight generations away, but we were told that these were the Tem Teh Tem Brii of that time, not the actual founders. The concrete land rights today are based on these known ancestors, not on the more vague founders. There can be two or three families of Tem Teh Tem Brii in one village, belonging to different lineage, if the village was founded by more than one ancestral family. In this case, the village territory is divided. The concept of Tem Teh Tem Brii concentrates the idea of land ownership in the MNong society. Tem Teh Tem Brii is the person who has the right and the obligation to manage the use of forest and mountains. It is commonly translated to Vietnamese as "land and forest owner", although this is not the real content. The content of "land owner" in MNong and Kinh language is very different. In fact, Tem Teh Tem Brii has to be translated more like "root" or "origin" of land and forest.
They have several mandates:
manage and control the distribution of land, take care of and protect the integrity of the village territory, indicate the ancestral land to young families, plan the annual land use and cultivation cycle, make the fire for the burning of the miir , conduct sacrifices and survey interdictions related to shifting cultivation, settle cases of violation of land use rights, punishment for forest fires, "immoral behavior" which could draw attention from supernatural beings.
If there is more than one Tem Teh Tem Brii , they share the duties and responsibilities. They are not "owners" with separate rights for each piece of land, but responsible for the village territory as one unit. Hence, they have to co-operate with each other and the other village leaders and take the decisions together. The Tem Teh Tem Brii has thus a very important position in the MNong village: he is the manager of the land and forest of the community and organizes the villagers use of their natural resources.
Table 3: Overview of the different leader’s roles
Village elder Uhraing bon Village founder Tem Teh Tem Modern village headman Brii
Traditional leader, responsible Traditional leader, responsible Modern leader, part of the only to the villagers. only to the villagers. government structures, but also responsible to the villagers.
Political and religious functions. Religious functions. Political functions. Consulted Regularly consulted also by also by traditional leaders. modern leaders.
Formal election, even if a Inherited, the village founder is Outside decision by the relative of the former village always a member of the same communes Peoples elder is the only candidate and lineage. Committee, in co-operation with the function is handed down in the village’s representatives. the clan.
Responsible for the interior Representing the identity of the Contacts with the communes stability of the village, mainly by village, the integrity of its Peoples Committee and other enforcing traditional rules on territory and history. government institutions. social behavior and activities in Representing the village the forest. Judging and Land owner, not of the farming towards the exterior. punishing infractions inside the land, but of the village territory village. Organizing collective as a whole. Two-way communication Page 15 of 39
actions. Responsible for land between the government and distribution. the village. Informing the Traditionally resolving any villagers of government conflicts with neighboring Organization of agricultural decisions, informing higher villages, mainly on land use or activities and religious activities levels of the villages demands. abuse of forest products. connected to them.
Leading the traditional spiritual life, managing sacrifices.
Organization of agricultural activities and their schedule.
For the project, the Uhraing bon and the modern village headman are very important partners. The Uhraing bon is responsible for activities regarding the forest and cultivation, and for the resolution of conflicts in this domain. The modern headman is important as member of the lower government structures. The latter role in the village depends mainly on his person. Some modern headmen are very young and have therefore a relatively weak position in their villages. In general, the Uhraing bon are decisive in village affairs, as they are older and more experienced. Traditionally and today, they are extremely important when it comes to the use of land and other natural resources. The Tem Teh Tem Brii’s role is mainly ideological, he has little decision-making power.
3.1.4 Land Distribution and Land Ownership
Traditionally, land ownership was limited to miir land, to land for cultivation in the forest. When families moved into another village, residential land in the new village was distributed and allocated easily. Land for cultivation, on the other hand, had and has to be bought or borrowed. Ownership of production land is in the hand of each household and the land rights are known to the rest of the village. If a family needs land for cultivation, they have to identify a family owning surplus land. The arrangements concerning the transfer of the land have to be fixed between the families. Increasing families or movement to other locations may cause demand for more land. Families having spare land because they inherited large plots or due to decrease of the family, or who need cash and have no other assets, might hand land over to other families. The necessary arrangement is based on mutual agreement and has three forms:
sharing, borrowing, transfer of ownership: sale or mortgage.
Sharing is frequent between members of the same lineage or the same clan, based on a spirit of mutual assistance. This implies letting the land without any formalized transfer of rights or duties. The land stays with the owner, it is just used for some time by somebody else. The land can be used longer than one year if the owner does not need it.
It happens very often that people who have no parental relationship borrow land. The land is let for one year only, and the family who takes it has evidently to do all the cultivation work. After the harvest, the land is returned and the borrower invites the owner to a sacrifice of a jar of alcohol and a chicken, or hands over a knife or some baskets.
A transfer of ownership is not based on an absolute value of the land. The MNong idea is more related to different types of land (good, bad) and the area to let (large, small). The price does not at all include the opportunities of loss and gain on either side, nor is it calculated in relation to the rice possibly harvested or to other values possibly drawn from the transfer. For example, an area of good land, large enough to sow one paddy basket (about 600 m 2), exchanges for a piglet of the size of two or three spans of a hand around the breast. Often the transfer of ownership is temporary, like mortgaging. If Family A needs a pig for a sacrifice or a copper pan to pay a fine, Family B will meet these requirements and will receive the ownership for some land, sized according to the value of the item. If the item is returned, the land will be returned, used or not.
All sharing, borrowing, lease or sale of land concerns only the piece of land in one of the village’s field plots. Page 16 of 39
The land acquired will only be used when this area is used by the whole village, that is, it will be under fallow for the rest of the time. The fields of one family on other village plots are never affected by such arrangements, so that the size of fields for one family can vary considerably from year to year depending on how much land was acquired or sold.
Formerly, the village territory was vast, the population density low and the land for miir abundant, so sharing or lending was easy. Old people in Lac Dong remember that their village used to borrow land from three other villages and put it into their cultivation rotation for a long time. When villagers did not use all land available, newcomers or people from other villages easily had land assigned. It can be speculated that land selling and buying did not happen then. Although MNong Gar become used to the idea of buying and selling land, and nowadays it happens regularly in many villages, people of 70 years of age do not remember it happened when they were young.
It has to be noted that the transfer of land ownership happens by preference among families of the same clan. Only if there are no relatives who have land available people buy land from outsiders in the same village. When households move to another village, their land is let to villagers staying, normally to members of the same clan. The price is mainly symbolic – one pig or one chicken, and one jar of alcohol. The family moving into another village will try to get land from members of the same clan resident there. Every change of land ownership is made known to the Tem Teh Tem Brii and the Uhraing bon . Normally the two parties have to drink together and to invite some village leader as witness. Other members of the clans and the village should also be present. Forest land for miir belongs to each family, but it is still subject to influence from the community and its representatives, Tem Teh Tem Brii and Uhraing bon .
3.2 Use and Conservation of Resources
In the MNong language there are two categories of forest: Brii is forest for miir , for shifting cultivation, and Brii Krong (or Brii Nam, Krong Nam ) is primary forest, not used for cultivation. When the forest is cut and used as field for cultivation, it is called Miir , but only until the harvest. Immediately thereafter it becomes part of the forest again; it returns to its state as Brii. MNong Gar are rotational shifting cultivators, that is, they are not shifting the settlements. Houses are build concentrated, in close villages. The villages residential land is not considered to be part of the forest, it is Teh. Every village had four to five such settlement areas, of which only one is used at a time. When the village changed settlements, it went from one of these sites to the next. This happened only after epidemics causing the death of many people, and resettlement due to long ways to the fields did only rarely occur.
The re-growth forest area is mainly used for cultivation, but for a variety of other activities too, such as collection of vegetables and bamboo shoots, rattan, bamboo and wood, as well as for hunting and fishing. The fields of the whole village are grouped together in one place in the forest (Rnoh Brii) and subdivided to the families according to their ancestral land. Every year the place where the village has its fields is changed. The places are switched according to a fixed sequence, and in the end the circle starts over again, continuing to rotate supposedly without end. As others have mentioned (Deturck, 1997, passim, Sam, 1994, passim) this process seems to be ecologically sustainable under the conditions of the traditional environment with low population pressure and little exterior interference. How long the traditional rotation period lasts, depends on the land available: the shortest is ten years, the longest 19, the most common is twelve years.
Table 4: Traditional rotation period per village
Dung Nam Tlong Lieng Ke Du Ma Bu Yuk Yie Yuk Lac Dong
12 years 19 years 14 years 15 years 12 years 13 years 10 years 19 years
Below are the maps of two villages, Yie Yuk and Lac Dong. They show the distribution of placements for fields and settlement sites:
Figure 3a: Cultivation and residential land in Yie Yuk
Page 17 of 39
Every place the village uses for miir has its own proper name and is known by this toponym. As mentioned above, the cultivation cycle was traditionally conceptualized not only as fixed in space, but also as orientation in time. The people were fully aware of the importance of this cultivation cycle for their society and its implications for the environment. It is called vaik saa brii , "rotating eating the forest". The vaik saa brii of Lieng Ke includes, as an example, 15 plots for 15 years:
Brii Lieng Ke
Brii Ngol Dak
Brii Ngol Tieng Iar
Brii Nong Tla All these names refer to places, for example to remarkable stone formations or rivers, or Brii Bok Dieng Dung just names to memorize the specific location.
Brii Pang Tang
Brii Dak Bon Krong
Brii Lieng Gungjut Page 18 of 39
Brii Dak Lau
Brii Dak Plang
Brii Chor Kang Bai
Brii Dieng Koong
Brii Deng Naik
Brii Deng Rgii
Brii Lieng Biit
The MNong Gar use a standard system of rotational shifting cultivation like many groups in similar natural environments. The land is under fallow for long periods, so forest and soil can recover after the one-year period of cultivation. The cycle keeps exposure of the soil to rain to a minimum and tries to reduce erosion. Ten to twelve years seem to be enough fallow for the forest to recover, so that for the next cultivation the soil is fertile enough. Twenty years should be enough for the forest to recover as "good", "old" forest, to regain a solid structure as secondary forest.
It can be supposed that a century or longer ago, when population density and pressure were lower, rotation cycle and fallow period were longer than today. Under these conditions the MNong Gar could continually cultivate on re-growth forest land, what they prefer anyway. According to the farmers, cultivation on old forest gives them higher yields and they need less labor input for weeding during the growing of the rice.
The fact that the families of one village concentrate their fields on one site increases the efficiency of the system. It reduces the surface of forest cleared, it simplifies the maintenance of the crops, and it makes the protection against animals easier. As most of the fields are not directly bordered by forest, the weed pressure is lower and there are less animals. People can work together on adjacent fields, so they can organize the work more efficiently and help each other out if needed.
3.2.1 Cultivation Conditions and Strategies
MNong Gar in the studied villages mentioned only soil quality as preliminary information vital for the success of their cultivation effort. They classify the soil on their land in different types and qualities. This classification is mainly based on color and consistence of the soil. The only additional categories where plant cover (are the trees growing on the site green and strong, did they grow fast?) and the quantity of worms in the soil. On the pilot sites, the soil structure is different from village to village. In Tlong, there are five types of soil identified:
Teh Bruung red soil,
Teh Dzu black, wet, fertile,
Teh Chai earth mixed with sand,
Teh Ndreh earth mixed with gravel, sterile,
Teh Tlir clay and stones.
Of these, only the first three can be used for cultivation. On the old site, they had mainly sandy earth, on the new site red and black.
In Lac Dong, five soil types were identified as suitable for cultivation:
Teh Pet Dzil red, wet,
Teh Gal black, good, Page 19 of 39
Teh Mah The Deng alluvial soil on river banks,
Teh Sre marsh land, mixed with gravel, soaked with water after rain,
Teh Bok fertile, gets muddy in the rainy season.
The village of Lieng Ke seems to have only one soil type, black mixed with sand, which is suitable for rice, corn and cash crops. According to the villagers, out of eight rice varieties, there are only Bar (glutinous rice) and Cay (similar to glutinous rice) which need this soil, the other six varieties can be cultivated on all other soils.
To prepare the fields, all plants on the site of the village plot are cut down, except for extremely big trees or trees people want to keep as timber for further usage. This is usually done at the end of January, beginning of February, the hottest period of the year. It is considered the busiest period, the time with the heaviest workload for everybody. Women are cutting small trees and bamboo thickets, whereas men are cutting bigger trees. Every family is clearing its own plot, the area it wants to cultivate during this year. After cutting down, the trees and brushes are left drying for some weeks before everything is burnt.
MNong Gar have always been worried about forest fires and pay much attention to its prevention. Before planting, plants and trees cut down have to be burnt. Fire is clearing the space for the fields, and the ashes are fertilizing the soil. A very important task during this work is to protect the forest outside, as the fire is started in the driest season of the year, when no rains can be expected to extinguish accidental fires. Five to ten days before the scheduled burning, the Uhraing bon convokes everybody in the village to clear a path about 3 m wide around the fields. There, all trees and other plants are cut and even leafs are discarded to prevent the fire from jumping out of the field into the forest. In some cases, counterfires may also be used to stop fires.
A wooden stick called Rnut is used for lighting the fire. For this purpose, the MNong Gar use a hardwood stick, around which a bamboo fiber is slung and alternately torn to both sides to create heat. After a while, the fiber starts to glow and burn. This traditional technique is still used today to start the burning for the fields. The Tem Teh Tem Brii is responsible for this action, which is preceded by a sacrifice on the fields. This sacrifice is made both to control the fire and to ask for fertility of the soil afterwards. The fire shall burn well and advance in the right direction, it shall leave few trunks to burn later, and it shall not jump accidentally over to the forest. After the Rnut ignited, the fire is started normally on several spots at the same time. It is set out at the lower end of the slope, creeping up the hill, and when the wind is blowing in the direction of the advancing fire. After lighting the fire, some people feed it and control its direction, while others watch if the fire is jumping over into the forest. After the fire has burnt down, the adjacent forest is again checked for fires caused by flying ashes or sparks. Some days later, when the earth cooled off, trunks and pieces left over and insufficiently burnt are lighted again. Other wood is left lying around and taken away as fuel wood later, or used to mark the boundaries between the families’ plots. After finishing the fires, another sacrifice is held, to feast the success of the fire and to thank for the fulfillment of the blessing asked for at the beginning of the burning. That gives the villagers an occasion to drink after the hot and dusty work of burning the fields, which is accompanied by many interdictions.
Everybody feels responsible for the protection of the forest against fire. Since childhood everybody heard about the necessity of these actions and the damages that may be caused by neglecting them. People causing fire by negligence are severely punished according to traditional rules. The attention to fires during the dry season is not only reminded constantly in the village, but inside the households too. The rules regarding the burning of the fields and forest fires are considered important by the MNong society. In former times, nobody dared to provoke wild forest fires, and old people tell that they formerly did not see any accidents or deliberately caused fires. In some villages this started to occur 35 - 40 years ago, in other villages this did never happen until now.
All work connected to the clearing and the burning is steered by the Tem Teh Tem Brii and the Uhraing bon. They inform the villagers of the moment when they think it is necessary to start the work, and they decide the day when to start the fire. They explain which interdictions ("taboos") are valid at what moment. The "official" beginning of the cultivation season is announced by the traditional leaders with a sacrifice. The rest of the work, planting, sowing, weeding, harvesting, is done by every family according to the availability of labor and the development of the crops. Still, the families have to stick more or less to a common formula. The villages schedule their cultivation work according to a stable timetable:
Table 5: Cultivation timetable
Month Activity Remarks Page 20 of 39
January Blacksmith works, reparation in the village, clearing land
February Continue clearing Young forest clearing starts in February
March Burn fields End of the month
April Clear fields from half-burnt trees, When it rains late, this is delayed to plant maize and early rice early May
May Plant main rice, melons, gourds, Has to be finished in the first days of beans, etc. June
June Weeding rice, plant eggplants, chili
July Harvest maize, weeding rice On good land, no second weeding is needed, only suppression of regrowing plants
August Weeding rice, if not done
September Protect crops, prepare barn, make baskets for harvest. Harvest early rice
October Begin harvesting main rice At the end of the month
November Harvest rice
December Harvest rice. When finished, Sometimes this can continue into sacrifices in every family January
The rice is planted following the same method in all MNong Gar villages. The men use two sticks to make holes in the earth, while the women sow. The sticks are about 2,5 m long, sharpened on one end. The man has one in each hand and as he advances, he makes two rows of holes, about 3 - 4 cm deep, in front of his feet. Two or three women follow sowing behind, putting the grains in the holes, covering them with earth and trampling on it to make sure the grains are not washed away. They start on top of the field, following the slope line until they arrive at the bottom.
After clearing the forest and burning the trees and brushes, the soil is rather porous and soft. At the same time, at the beginning of the rainy season, it is exposed to continuous heavy rainfall and thus easily washed away. Using sticks to make holes to plant reduces erosion, as the use of a plough or a hoe would loosen the earth considerably more. During the heaviest rainfalls in the cultivation cycle, from July to September, the rice has already developed and flowers, covering and protecting 10 - 13% of the surface. The impact of rainfall and erosion are therefore reduced.
3.2.2 Timber "Fostering"
Although timber is available in the forest, MNong Gar use to "breed" trees for future utilization as timber. When they cut forest for fields, trees of good quality and hardwood trees are spared, even when they are still young. This happens to Dalbergia, Pterocarpus, Hopea, Diptherocarpus, etc. The Vietnamese forest industry presently classifies these timbers in group one and two. The MNong Gar use these timbers mainly to construct houses and for sale.
Besides scattered trees, whole patches of forest are left in the field to grow. Some families only use part of their cultivation land and leave part for future use untouched. These patches are selected according to the number of single trees with a potential future value as timber. When preparing the fields, the family clears other types of secondary forest and bamboo thickets around this timber patches. Some people started to raise trees in their childhood but still did not cut them; these trees now have a diameter of more than one meter. In Yie Page 21 of 39
Yuk, many families foster naturally growing pine forest since a long time. The resin of these pine trees is used as torch in the houses and is exchanged with other villages.
These trees or forest patches have a keeper and an owner: the family owning the cultivation land they are standing. Trees in the forest, not standing on cultivation land belonging to a specific owner, can be cut down by all villagers. Very big trees, especially on river banks, are spared for the coffins of people who can afford this. Nowadays, people from other villages can cut bamboo and small trees in the village forest. Trees stronger than "a mans leg" have to be asked for, and they may be sold or given away, according to the relations between the villages and the position of the interested person. Today, most of the precious woods and big trees have disappeared anyhow. According to the villagers, they were logged by forest companies during the last twenty years.
The "timber-breeding" shows that the MNong are planning the exploitation of the forest on long-term, and that they are saving and fostering natural resources for future use. This thinking can be an important asset for the project intentions to manage natural resources and should be encouraged.
3.2.3 Popular Believes as Factors of Conservation
The traditional believe that everything is a creature and has its own soul, contributes to the efficient management of natural resources in the MNong society. Land, rocks, water, forest patches and trees can all be inhabited by Yang , spirits or genies of the place. Some places in the forest are interdicted ( Rbak ), because Yang live there. This is known to everybody. As humans cannot disrespect supernatural forces, these places are spared from burning, cultivation or other use, although people can walk through. During the clearing of the fields, these patches are spared and sacrifices are organized to protect them. If these patches are burned accidentally, people might fall ill or even die. The same is true for every violation, deliberate or not, of places where Yang live. A sacrifice has to be made at the place where the violation took place to calm the enraged Yang and to apologize, if somebody falls ill. This may also be done to prevent consequences of a known violation. The MNong Gar are very careful not to offend the Yang of the forest, the water or anywhere else and prevent anything potentially enraging these.
The spots inhabited by Yang and considered untouchable by the MNong Gar are in general covered with dense forest and big, old trees. This does not mean that there is "holy forest" covering larger areas. Perhaps 20m from the Yang’s places the forest is protected, but not further away. There is no specific definition of a interdicted place: one huge tree might be protected, an identical one, 50 m away, might be cut down without remorse. Hilltops are not protected either, and miir can cover a whole hill on all sides.
The Tem Teh Tem Brii are not only managers of the land and forest in use, but they entertain a relation with the Yang of the land, mainly by organizing the cultivation work. They make the fire and are responsible for the seeds and the success of the harvest of the whole village. Therefore, they ask the villagers to respect certain interdictions at certain times of the year (not to eat rice soup made with broken rice and vegetables, not to put the hand into the water for the alcohol jar). Inadmissible social behavior is severely punished and the Yang are asked to forgive. The knowledge of all these rules and the relation with the supernatural powers makes the position of the Tem Teh Tem Brii very stable and powerful. It is also significant for the cultivation processes and those concerning the natural environment. Being influenced by these beliefs and by a strong social control, MNong Gar do in general not act individually and tend not to disobey rules concerning the protection of their natural environment. The Tem Teh Tem Brii and the Uhraing bon as well as the traditional beliefs they represent create an intangible barrier around the social life and permissible behavior in the village and in the forest. The complex relations between these concepts have consequences for the management of natural resources and add to the protection the forest and forest land.
4 NATURAL RESOURCES DEGRADATION
The villagers have experienced the loss of the big, precious trees, but they consider this mainly as the influence of the Vietnamese logging companies or illegal logging. The consequences of this loss are measured as loss of income and possibility to find trees for the building of houses. It is not thought of in terms of soil degradation or loss of water retention capacity. Over the last centuries, their environment, even the time were considered to be stable. The forest was a source of living, and the fields where the same after the rotation period, they always regenerated the same way. Their ways of exploiting the forest were sustainable, the forest did not deteriorate. Main changes were deaths and epidemics, which forced switching of the villages’ residential site. Nevertheless, the villagers always recreated the space order of their ancient villages on the new site (see Condominas (?), Social Space in Southeast Asia). Page 22 of 39
This conception of steadiness was politically strengthened by the French administration, which wanted to write down local laws and hierarchies for every community. So the experience of resettlement was a major shift in the history of the villagers, as they lost their animals and could not return to their former fields. Since then, there was little time to accept these modifications and to integrate them into the way of thinking.
Environmental degradation is mainly perceived by every-day experience. The further effects of deforestation and other socio-economic changes on a larger scale are not known. To explain these causal relations and their consequences, to show the wider context the villagers are living in to them, should be a task of the project. The degradation of the environment is mainly understood as a monocausal problem, caused by deforestation, affecting therefore the forest, in consequence thereof the soil, cultivation efforts, land availability and the whole life. The only solutions proposed are therefore, most probably under influence of government policy, to reduce the use of forest fields, to stop clearing forest and to shift to permanent agriculture in the valley. Additionally, they propose to protect the forest from exploitation by outsiders.
4.1 Experience and Perceived Causes
In all nine villages, the people are affected by the deterioration of the natural environment and all suffer subsistence problems due to the deterioration of natural resources. An overview of the experienced differences between the situation in former times and nowadays:
Table 6: Awareness of Natural Resources Depletion
Before Now
Forest Lots of old forest No old forest, only young forest, premature for exploitation
Forest Soil Soil of old forest, fertile, large Soil of young forest, infertile, too spaces little
Forest Products Abundant, easy to find Impoverished, few, difficult to find
Birds and Game Many species, many animals Less, extinction of species (elephant, tiger, etc.)
River Fish Many, easy to fish Few, difficult to catch
The MNong in the project area see several reasons leading to the depletion of natural resources in their village land:
growing population in their settlement area, especially after 1975, lack of land for miir , so they can no longer do shifting cultivation as it should be, they have to use young forest and shorten the rotation cycle, sometimes to only five years, deliberately caused forest fires, systematic forest exploitation by outsiders after 1975, fishing by electricity and explosives.
These changes have a direct impact on the life of the villagers. To get the same results in their harvest or when collecting in the forest, they need more labor, more time, they have to walk longer to get even standard forest products. The villagers of Lieng Ke, Tlong, Nam and Yie Yuk return regularly to the places of their old villages to gather forest products. This takes from some villages one to two hours one way, from others six to seven hours.
Closer to the settlements, some forest products are no longer found. This directly impoverishes the villagers and has a negative impact on their living standard, as forest products account for a big part of their daily food. Timber is scarce and the prices are rising. In Lac Dong, a plank of Hopea, 250 cm x 25 cm x 1.5 cm was priced in 1996 at 6,000 VND, in 1997 the price had risen to 10,000 VND. The people in Lac Dong have to maintain and protect forest patches to have timber to use in the coming years. Page 23 of 39
Cattle and buffaloes were lost during the war, and today the villagers try to build up new livestock by feeding cattle. Cows are more suitable for the present conditions, so that in many villages, there is no buffalo. Formerly, buffaloes were not really a source of meat or labor force, as they were only sacrificed in the most important festivals. Except in the area around Lak, the MNong never used buffaloes to plough or do other labor. The buffaloes rather were an important asset for the family and a sign of its importance and wealth. The conditions to keep buffaloes have worsened. Appropriate grazing grounds dwindle, as the animals were formerly just left walking in the forest to graze.
Fish caught in rivers was a normal part of the food. It was the major source of protein, as animals in the village were only slaughtered for sacrifice. Nowadays, it is scarce, the people rarely eat fish caught by themselves, and they have to eat dried sea-fish bartered from Kinh merchants.
The fields in the forest provided the MNong Gar with rice and other foodstuff, like vegetables (eggplant, gourd, pumpkin ...), chili, onions, pineapple, papaya, sugarcane and others. The miir today are further away and less land is available for cultivation. The MNong Gar are therefore no longer able to secure the traditional lifestyle, as cultivation has to be done on young forest soil after short periods of fallow, or with consecutive crops on the same site.
The soil impoverishes, there are more weeds, the labor input for weeding has to be doubled or tripled, and the rice yields are lower. Traditional low input agricultural methods applied permanently on flat land create similar problems: The villagers complain that after one or two crops, they can no longer manage weeding, they become disappointed and want to go back using the more fertile fields on forest soil.
Another result of the scarcity of forest land for cultivation is that families have to scatter their field. By this, the necessary labor input for walking increases even more, and protection of crops against weed and animals becomes less efficient. Yields decrease and become unstable, and food shortages happen more frequently and are more serious. The discrepancies between labor input on old and young forest are shown below (the data are only estimates, in working days per person):
Table 7: Labor input on different forest soils
Soil Cutting, Burning, Sowing Weeding Harvest Total Rice clearing clearing labor produced
Old forest 30 days 5 days 8 days 10 days 40 days 95 ± 100 days baskets
Young 10 days 5 days 8 days 70 days 20 days 113 30 - 40 forest days baskets
All these changes make the life poorer, decrease the living standard, and create a cash demand that did not (or almost not) exist in former times. All these depletion of natural resources happening continually in their area, the MNong Gar are well aware of it and its consequences. They experience that it affects their living conditions. In former times, the forest used to feed them: they had the miir , could collect forest products as food stuff, could hunt, could collect bamboo and rattan for basket making, and find wood for construction. Almost all other things for their everyday life came from the forest too. Plant species that can be used as foodstuff are abundant in the forest. A list of names of species identified as edible in Ba Yang is provided in Annex B. Following are the numbers of edible plant names in two villages as indicators for the importance of forest products in daily life:
Table 8: Number of edible forest plants in two villages
Vegetables Mushrooms Roots and tubers Wild fruits
Tlong 28 16 8 17
Ba Yang 46 16 7 30 Page 24 of 39
Since long ago, the MNong Gar live on subsistence farming, self sufficient and helping each other out in case of calamities. Many people now are nostalgic about the past, when the forest soil was fertile and forest resources were still abundant. They are concerned about the exhaustion of natural resources, as this directly relates to their living standard. The common opinion in the villages is that the recent changes make life more difficult. They have to struggle harder and harder to keep up lower and lower a living condition. Therefore, they are in a downward spiraling situation they are well aware of: On one hand they are worrying about the recent degradation of the natural resources and the environment, and the consequences this has for their life. On the other hand, they have to continue to exploit these resources to safeguard their life. In recent years they were exposed to external considerations about their natural resources, the necessity of environmental and ecological protection, the consequences of deforestation for the water supply and its impact on soil quality and erosion. Besides this newly acquired knowledge, there are no formulated traditional concepts about the consequences of protection or destruction of the environment. Even without a clear consciousness of the complex relations between all these different factors, including external ones, the Traditional Natural Resources Management Strategies resulted in an efficient management of the natural environment.
4.2 Proposed Actions
The MNong Gar face a number of serious problems, as forest, forest land and forest resources decrease. They want the forest and other natural resources to be protected, but we could not retrieve any concrete proposals nor ideas on new management strategies, as the traditional system is considered sustainable and therefore no need for change necessary. The most common idea is to continue to protect the forest as they always did, preventing the exploitation by outsiders. The project should encourage this tendency and use it for its aims. This would stabilize the forest and let it recover completely after some time. There was a widespread acceptance of the idea to give up cultivating in the forest on the long term to protect it, and the suggestions focused on assistance to stabilize a life without forest fields. A standard argument for continuing the use of miir was that "it is part of our cultural heritage". Most would nevertheless accept to use fields around the actual settlements and exploit the forest under their own control for additional subsistence products if the living standard would improve. The considered immediate actions of the villagers are:
continue cultivating miir is the most popular idea (almost everybody in Yie Yuk, Lac Dong and Ba Yang, some people in all other villages), combine miir with irrigated rice fields, fields in the plain and garden farming, not miir as main source of income (some people in every village), cultivate irrigated rice fields, fields in the plain, garden, no more miir (the majority in Nam and Tlong, some in Lieng Ke and Du Ma).
According to statistics provided by village cadres, in every village there are some forest fields, but also a diversity of other: irrigated rice fields, coffee, cashew, corn etc.
Table 9: Hectares of cultivated land and crops per village
Village Forest Wet-rice Wet-rice Dry rice Other Coffee Cashew field 1 harvest 2 harvest
Dung ? 4.5 1 6
Nam 15 5 1.9 5
Tlong 2.9 3.5 11.5 1.8 6
Lieng Ke 4 1 0.7 5 4 4 0.5
Du Mah 5 4 6 24
Yie Yuk 20 6 5.7 5 28
Bu Yuk 10 2.2 0.5 2.6 4.2 20
Lac Dong 8 1 10 2.5 4 31 Page 25 of 39
Ba Yang 32 7.7 8.3 6.6 2.5 3
There is potential and will to further develop irrigated rice and other crops. This would help diminish the use of miir, as well as provide the villagers with crops that could give them some cash income.
However, the transition from shifting cultivation to permanent agriculture will certainly pose a challenge to all involved. Let alone the cultivation of cash crops which constitutes the next higher agricultural level. Permanent food production has highest priority within this transition process.
5 EXTERNAL INTERVENTION
The majority of the villagers understand that, under present conditions, they will have to change their way of living in the near future: they will have to change the crops they plant, give up shifting cultivation, and give up the whole production cycle and lifestyle based thereon. These changes are required to adapt to the changing of the whole natural and social context they live in. As they are mainly responding to outside developments, they do not understand themselves as actors, but as objects of exterior interference.
Outside intervention to protect and stabilize their natural environment together with them is a new experience. In the last 150 years, outside intervention was not always beneficial to them. Since French times, they had to pay taxes, were resettled, put into ‘strategic hamlets’, bombed, and forbidden to use their forest. The MNong have a deep mistrust to outsiders’ activities because of these experiences. During the last 30 years timber was extracted by outsiders. Later the government institutions started to protect the forest. To the local people, the same people who cut down the forest now want to save it by stopping them to use their forest land without providing an alternative. The project has to see its relationship with the MNong in this historical and psychological context: it has to overcome the mistrust and to prove that it is not just continuing to talk about betterment, but that its activities create positive changes.
Their main task is still to minimize negative effects of these developments and to continue living in the changing surroundings. The biggest difficulty they see is to secure the living today and for the next years. Most important is a continuous security of food supply. To be able to manage the necessary changes, every village had its own demands for outside assistance. They consider some help necessary to overcome the actual shortcomings, as they do not see themselves able to achieve these changes on their own:
Dung: Expand the area of irrigated fields, ensure water supply for the irrigated rice and clear land for different cash-crops.
Nam: Expand the area of irrigated fields, improve the irrigation system. Better land distribution to all villagers. Identification of suitable crops.
Tlong: Clear sufficient production land.
Lieng Ke: Clear land for irrigated fields, build dam for irrigation.
Du Ma: Increase area for irrigated rice.
Bu Yuk: Develop coffee and hybrid corn.
Yie Yuk: Enlarge and upgrade coffee plantation.
Lac Dong: Identification of suitable crops. Provide support to cultivate flat land.
Besides these specific demands, other request are better freshwater supply (wells, as many villages are 100% dependent on river water), support with cattle breeding and assistance in marketing products to minimize the negative influence of local traders. These expectations of the villagers would require the constant support of the government and relevant institutions, programs and projects. They are not able to implement changes, as there are too many shortcomings and they lack of too many preconditions. To create a sustainable natural resources management responding to the changing conditions, the living conditions for the local population Page 26 of 39
should be stabilized.
5.1 Sustainable Management of Resources in the Lower Mekong Basin
The villagers see the Sustainable Management of Resources in the Lower Mekong Basin project definitely in a position to provide assistance and to help them. The project is still relatively new to the villagers, especially in Krong No. The village leaders are well aware of its existence and its measures, but many of the farmers do not know much about it.
The villagers are well aware of the activities of the project, but further implications and the background of the measures are not fully understood. The project is thought to be mainly active to improve the economic situation and living conditions of the villagers, which is directly expected. Very few people are aware of sustainable natural resources management in an area beyond the communes in Dak Lak as project aim, as natural resources management in their forest is part of their life, but there is no understanding of "downstream effects".
In Dak Phoi, the project is better known. Several confidence building measures are in the process of implementation (in each village some households participate):
improved wood stoves are provided to reduce the need of fuel wood, hybrid corn is introduced in the villages, loans are provided, wet rice cultivation supported (extension, input supply), the land allocation process is supported.
These measures are well accepted and give the project a good standing in the opinion of the target group. However, the understanding of the project by the general population is still vague. Most people are aware of the existence of the project, but many do not know the project title or the project aim. The improved wood stoves, the hybrid corn or project staff repeatedly seen in villages are all well known and recognized. People are able to identify the project components, and the see them as connected together.
In Krong No, the actual activities are PRA exercises and constant contacts of project staff with the villagers. Because the villagers there still have difficulties to understand the aim of the project, they see participatory efforts as "time consuming discussions". The project has to make clear its long-term strategies: The villagers expect a longer presence of the project in their area.
To make the villagers understood its long-term strategies and its interest in the villagers, the project should work on both sides, as a mediator between the government and other official agencies, and the villagers. This would directly strengthen the position of the villagers in contacts with the programs already running, e.g., influence the forest distribution under 327, survey the land allocation process. Facilitate necessary contacts between villagers and outside institutions would strengthen the position of the project towards its target group and strengthen the position of the villagers towards the outside world. This would improve the co-operation of the villagers with the project, leading to an increasing identification with it and to a sense of "ownership" of the project.
5.2 Government Programs
There are several programs active in the studied area. Most of them are considered overall positive by the villagers. The main problem for them is access to these programs, the lack of knowledge how to use them, and some misunderstanding about the structure and the aims. The project could provide them with information and support them in the necessary contacts with institutions and authorities. The project could integrated some of the programs activities, for example, handle the management of reforestation. At the same time, it could work as a "teacher" to explain the activities of other programs to the villagers.
We fully understood only after returning to Buon Ma Thuot that besides the Project’s Hybrid Corn Program, there is also one run by government institutions. Only in Buon Nam people mentioned the existence of the government program: there are 5.000 m 2 planted with LVN 10. We did not receive any information regarding perceived differences between the two programs.
5.2.1 Reforestation Program 327
Long-term forest allocation under the 327 Program is implemented in many villages in the pilot area. In most villages, many families participate in the groups organizing the forest protection. In others, the reaction is less Page 27 of 39
enthusiastic: in Lac Dong, Ba Yang and Yie Yuk participate only two households, in Bu Yuk four. The response of the participating households is overall positive, as the involved families receive an annual sum of money and can maintain some of the forest. In most cases, the families in the villages are divided into groups, with up to ten households working together. The receive a forest segment and share responsibilities and benefits. In Dung this includes replanting trees on former miir land. The program here allows the people to use a defined space in the forest to use as miir . This was started in 1996 and continued in 1997. The village was allowed to use 50 hectares, but could only distribute 39.8 and 40 hectares because of scarcity of suitable forest land. The program allows the villagers to use the miir for one year. Additionally, the program paid about 1.200.000 VND/hectare for the first year of 1996 and provided trees for reforestation. For this money, the people are expected to plant the trees provided by the program and to protect them for the following two years. It was not clear how much money they receive after the first year. As there is no more distribution mechanism for the forest land, each family secured a plot sufficient for their needs. In consequence, some families did not have access to these miir and are excluded from this additional source of land.
Table 10: Forest assigned to each village under 327
Dung Nam Tlong Du Ma Lieng Ke Yie Yuk Bu Yuk
492.1 ha 308 ha 328 ha 547 ha 273 ha 82.5 ha 131 ha
To leave the forest to the groups to manage is surely correct and produces the desired effects. Nevertheless, an allocation other than to groups would be viable, using the traditional decision making sub units of the MNong society: the whole village and the family. Giving the right to manage the forest to the village, distributing the responsibility to each family would protect the forest resources on two levels: the community and the individual. By this, traditional institutions would be strengthened and the confidence of the villagers in their society enhanced. This would help building confidence in the external measures, as the villagers could stick to the forest and their land, and manage it in a way corresponding to the local social structures.
5.2.2 Poverty Alleviation Program and Credits
After returning to Hanoi, we were informed that the Poverty Alleviation Program is not active in the project area. Nevertheless, during our study we asked for this program by its Vietnamese name Xo¸ ®ãi gi¶m nghÌo (Hunger eradication and poverty reduction) and got the following results. If the answers obtained concern credits in general or those provided by a specific program, or if the local understanding of "Hunger eradication and poverty reduction" is broader than that used by the project, has to be checked by future investigation.
The villagers considered the credits provided until now not as a viable solution for their main problems, which are shortage of food in certain periods and shortage of land. In all villages a credit term of no longer than six months was mentioned. This term of reimbursement is regarded as too short to invest the money reasonably: several times the wish to buy cattle, a water pump or other machinery was mentioned. These ventures would take longer to produce results in cash to pay back the debt.
Some general experiences with credits and the consequences thereof are:
The credit term is considered too short. The credit amount is considered too small to work with. The people are afraid of not being able to repay the credit (because the money was used for other than the specified purpose or the harvest was bad). There exists a general reluctance to use credits or loans, because of unfamiliarity with banking interest: the debt increases, although you do nothing.
When the credit was provided in times of food shortage, some people used the money to arrange the most urgent problems, that is, to buy rice for the hungry family, so that they could not invest the money nor pack back their debt. For example, 21 families in Nam borrowed money (between 600.000 VND and 1.000.000 VND), but apparently used the money to by food and therefore had difficulties to return it. They collected wild plants in the forest and sold them to Kinh merchants as medicine to earn the necessary money. As there is much talk about experiences like this, the villagers are not willing to borough money. A change of mind seems possible if the time to return the loans would be longer and handled more flexibly.
5.2.3 Land Allocation Page 28 of 39
Land is in the process of being allocated in the villages, but except the village leaders people seem to know little about it. The land allocated in the settlement areas is the land that has been assigned under the resettlement program. Since then, the ownership has changed considerably as the villagers change, swap and sell land frequently. The MNong have a strong sense of land ownership, so that not everybody understands the consequences and importance of the official land title. Since ancient times, land ownership is handled by the community and between individuals, so that the ownership of land is known to everybody, and holding a legal title or not does not change anything.
A hurdle in all measures concerning the management of land and natural resources is the lack of understanding of the state ownership of forest land. According to the perception of the villagers, the forest now belongs to the government and is managed by the lâm nghiÖp . Therefore they think they lost their rights or mandates to protect the forest like they did before, and they feel no longer responsible to save the forest. The allocation of forest through 327 is not considered as a form of land tenure or land allocation. For them, production and forest land is traditionally theirs, but they think they have no more legal title concerning the forest. The indigenous methods of forest protection, valid and respected during generations, are therefore vanishing.
The land allocation process has to be supported and its importance made clear to the population. As land is allocated to the households, the actual land allocation process will reduce the influence of women in household affairs if land is allocated to the male household had individually. The rights of the holder of the legal land title have to be explained to the villagers. As there are no more traditional, intra-village instances of land allocation, the official process should be surveyed to reduce irregularities. All these task can be managed by the project.
6 RECOMMENDATIONS
The project is faced with a well-founded "suspicion" against any outside intervention which established itself amongst the local population. The multiple interruptions during the last century, beginning with "pacification" and colonization, continued during the long years of war with displacement into the Êp into the forest, resulted in broad changes for the MNong Gar in the area: They lost their settlement and cultivation places and patterns, they lost their wealth. All this, especially the repeated resettlements, caused deformation of their social structure, of the concepts of orientation in time and space.
The experienced changes, caused by developments out of their influence and brought to them by outsiders, have caused a certain fatalism. For an efficient participation of the target group, this fatalism has to be reduced and confidence of the target group in itself and the project has to be created. This will take a long time, but should be integral part of the projects strategies.
After the war, many of the villages were heavily maintained by the government for their support during the war; they were considered "heroic" villages. Today, as these maintenance efforts are stopped, the villagers expect from government and other programs the unconditional delivery of material aid. They have little experience with programs promoting their self -help potential or their active participation in the decision making processes during the project activities. It therefore has to be made clear that the project is focusing on self-help and participatory approaches. There should be a reduction of the "taker"-mentality (Nehmermentalität).
It is clear to us that the following suggestions, extraction of the "wish-lists" delivered to us by the villagers, are far from promoting self-help. The "demanded" assistance can not only be provided by the project, but, potential interventions are:
to provide necessary information to the villagers to maximize self-help, to facilitate co-operation between the local population, government organizations and programs, for example in land allocation processes, to facilitate access to government institutions and other programs, or to integrate them into the projects activities .
There are some basic shortcomings put forward by the villagers, which they want to have overcome before giving up the shifting cultivation. If they continue to suffer from food shortage, they will continue to neglect any protection of the environment: They will continue to cut the forest to survive, although they are conscious of the difference of value between the rice harvested, and the intact forest. Consequences thereof are the following demands: Page 29 of 39
Bare land for cultivation needs to be cleared and prepared, by ploughing, levelling, and the suppression of regrowing plants. It might be possible to transfer the cut-and-burn methods and the land allocation system used in the forest fields on plain land. There is not enough water for irrigation to expand the wet rice fields. The initial land allocation and land use planning should be done with participation of the villagers and monitored by the project, incorporating community based decision making processes . Appropriate plant species for cultivation have to be identified: they have to be suitable for the local natural conditions, produce high yields, and be of high economic value. As the project has already experience with the hybrid corn, it should continue to propose new plant varieties to the farmers. A soft transition from known plants to "modern" ones should be achieved. Besides that, advice on techniques and methods is needed. The villagers should not only be provided with knowledge, but also with facilities to acquire the material. There is a lack of cash to invest into the essential material. Proper identification of the credit conditions corresponding to the possibilities of the target group are necessary. The main argument for longer credit terms is the will to invest in livestock like cattle or in machinery like water pumps or tractors, which need more time to produce results in cash. To facilitate the repayment of loans and the generation of cash income, the project should provide knowledge on market access for the products or help building connections to markets. Some basic introduction in the methods of getting reasonable prices for the products should also be provided.
6.1 Reawakening of Traditional Natural Resources Management Strategies in the Project
The Traditional Natural Resources Management Strategies are based on managing the forest to protect it and allow it to recover. The existing rules and strategies of the villages to protect their natural resources should be respected and encouraged. The stability of their relation with the forest and their awareness of it is part of the cultural background of the target group. This protective aspects of the Traditional Natural Resources Management Strategies can be revived, as they it central in the spirit of MNong Gar society.
The project should make sure that the villagers are entitled to protect the forest as they did before. For this, they have to be conscious about their rights to manage forest products and to reduce exploitation by others, and about the importance of their actions. This consciousness should be cultivated: Their experience of the last 50 years show them that their strategies of protecting the forest were always overruled by legal or illegal activities of outsiders. The impact of present policies to "protect" forest areas and other external activities in the project area should therefore to be analyzed, as the villagers want to continue to protect the forest, preventing exploitation. The project should encourage this tendency and use it for its aims. The positive response to the 327 program of most of the villagers shows that they are convinced of being able to continue protecting the forest, even if they do not use it for fields any more, provided they have other means to secure their living.
Traditional strategies like the mentioned "timber-breeding" should be encouraged by the project, as the help protecting the forest. The right to use these timbers should be fixed, so that the invested time and work of the keeper will not be wasted.
As the consequences of deforestation and its impact on the natural environment are only known and perceived by every-day experience on a local scale. To introduce the villagers to the effects of environmental degradation and their consequences for the target group and "downstream" environments should be a task of the project the project to explain its interest in Natural Resources Management and its aims.
The traditional system of shifting cultivation is completely different from the one to be practiced on fixed cultivation fields in the valleys. A complex transition from traditional, low input, rotational shifting cultivation to modern, high input, sedentary agriculture, from extensive cultivation to intensive agriculture, will take place, as the rise in relative population pressure, the relative scarcity of forest land where shifting cultivation is permitted, and government policies are not likely to allow for returning to the traditional system of cultivation. This means to introduce the villagers to the use of fertilizers, pesticide and herbicide, as well as the introduction of high yield plant varieties. The tools will change: new tools will replace the use of hoe and foot only.
The change to an intensive cultivation on land in the valleys seems contradictory to traditional strategies. These are concentrated on reducing labor input and investment to the lowest possible level to harvest and gather the necessary food and other products. These strategies, found in many places in the tropics, were labeled "Stone Age Economy" by Marshall Sahlins. He showed their efficiency and the relatively high living standard obtained by them, comparing the yield with the low labor input needed. Loosing this living standard by working more is a psychological barrier on the way of switching to an intensive agriculture. Page 30 of 39
Producing rice and vegetables on forest fields is still the most efficient method of cultivation known to the MNong Gar. Shifting cultivation fields produce more with less labor than fields in the plain. Condominas measured this in the MNong Gar village of Sar Luk in 1948: the harvest in that year yielded between 1625 kg/ha of paddy for the poorest and 3080 kg/ha for the richest villager. These results were considered average. The yields mentioned by farmers in the project area today are about the same. The MNong farmers around the lake of Lak produce between 700 kg/ha and 1500 kg/ha annually of wet-rice paddy. Additionally, shifting cultivation fields produce a variety of vegetables, whereas wet-rice fields only produce rice (Condominas, (?), 240-245). To motivate the villagers to a change of their traditional combination of production methods, the project show that intensive cultivation with the necessary input of plant species, tools, and fertilizer, can produce better results. This would make the necessary changes more appealing and show that they are compatible with the traditional strategies.
6.2 Decision Making Strategies to be Involved in Land Use Planning and the Project
Land use planning has to consider the demands and needs of the local communities, and all the economic, social and cultural factors. The villagers are aware that cutting whatsoever forest is illegal, but continue to do clear forest for fields. To change their attitude concerning agriculture in the valley and to ensure their participation in the protection of the forest, some of their traditional strategies, both of land management as of natural resources management, can easily be "adopted" by the project.
The land allocation process has to be initialized and its importance made clear to the population. This is an important challenge for the project, which is already involved in the process and providing assistance to the officials managing this. Here, the project has to work on both sides, providing assistance to the officials and to the local population. Gender wise, as land is allocated to the households and the male household head, this will reduce the influence of women in village and household affairs
The MNong society was never economically egalitarian, but traditionally political power was strongly restricted inside the village. As these traditional intra-village regulations are no longer active in the society, modern village leaders are no subject to any control. Since the introduction of the modern leaders by the French administration, there are no mechanisms regulating political abuse of power. This affects land allocation processes, as it allows for excessive attribution of land by the persons who control the process in the village. It would be appreciated by the people if the project sees a possibility to monitor these processes, i.e., facilitate participatory monitoring and evaluation measures implemented by the villagers.
The project could contribute to change the responsibility for 327-forest from groups to families and the village in communities where this seems more convincing and convenient to the people. Some communities might consider it an advantage, as they would protect the forest according to their own rules. This might reduce the efficiency of the process and demand more labor input. But interior regulation mechanisms of the village will be used and strengthened, thus enhancing self-confidence and perhaps the self-help potential. Above all, traditional mechanisms will be integrated into a government program, thus creating a liaison of tradition and modernity, between the village and outside structures. This would improve mutual confidence, especially confidence of the villagers in outside interventions. To facilitate this kind of integration in all fields, to work as catalyst between those two sides, should be a priority for the project.
The project should consider to integrate the traditional system of field distribution and rotation into lowland agriculture. This would be providing some large areas, which would be distributed by the villagers according to their internal rules. In this case, the project has to make sure that all families are involved in this process: as miir land was distributed in Dung in 1996, there was no formal attribution to the families, every family took as much land as considered necessary by themselves, and some households had no access to this land at all. Traditional distribution of land in the valley could re-integrate cultivation and settlement into a traditional cultural background. This could facilitate the acceptance of modern agricultural by the target group.
.As the territorial basis of the village life has changed, some villages live on the land of other villages, and in others members of different village communities are grouped together. This produces conflict between the villages, which today are not resolved. An example: The villagers in Nam consider their chronic food shortage mainly due to lack of land. This lack of land is aggravated by the existence of a coffee plantation run by Kinh people on land originally earmarked for Nam, Dung and Tlong. The problem arose because the three villages which where allowed to use the land could not find a common ground. The common opinion was that the land would be enough for one village, but for three villages it would have to be divided into plots too small to manage. Page 31 of 39
As all villages wanted to use the land exclusively, nobody could use it. As there was no decision by the commune either, the forest enterprise handed the land over to Kinh from Lien Son. The villagers think that this outcome could have been prevented, if the three village-elders would have had the possibility to come together and find a common solution. The village heads should therefore have the possibility to decide land allocation in the valley and regulate problems between themselves. Problems like territorial conflicts should first be regulated through discussion, and this should be acknowledged by higher institutions. This would reduce the conflicts between the villages, and raise the surface cultivated in the valley.
The position of the traditional leaders Uhraing bon and Tem Teh Tem Brii are weakening. The MNong in the area keep nevertheless a very strong spirit of village cohesion, they follow village rules, keep their village’s culture, and they identify with their village and its history. The traditional leaders continue to be respected persons and have a strong voice in community affairs. The modern leaders in the village and on commune level have to work together with the Uhraing bon . The Uhraing bon is responsible for activities regarding the forest and cultivation, and the resolution of conflicts in this domain, while the modern headman is the touching point between the village and government structures. Being respected by the villagers, the Uhraing bon is decisive in village affairs. Traditionally and today, he is extremely important when it comes to the use of land and other natural resources. The interior cohesion of the villages ensures the co-operation of the different village leaders, so if the project acts according to the present power structures, integrating them into participatory approaches, it will improve its standing with the target group.
6.3 Recommendations on Confidence Building and Project Strategies
The most important point for the project is to show the way it differs from other outside intervention. This should reduce the traditional suspicion of the local population against outsiders. To do this, the project should support the villagers in their contacts with government institutions, without taking sides. The project will be judged according to its ability to work together with the villagers, and to work in their interest, for example, by facilitating necessary contacts between villagers and outside institutions. This would show the positive intentions of the project, and the co-operation of the villagers, as they will be working for themselves. This should be leading to a sense of "ownership" of the project on the side of the villagers .
To introduce itself, the project should prove its awareness of the problems of the villagers, but it should also make sure people understand its aim. Protection of the forest and the environment and sustainability of resources management are part of the MNong Gar way of living. Self-help and village solidarity are basics of their social life. It should not be difficult to get positive responses and support from them. To ensure their co- operation in the search for new management strategies for natural resources and the implementation of project activities, the project has to make sure that they understand what the project is doing in their villages. This would also make a difference from other outside intervention. The project has already a very good start up to now with the two spark measures.
The project should prove its awareness of the cultural and social differences between MNong and Kinh. This would include the use of MNong language as far as possible. As mentioned already several times, the positions of the villagers towards the exterior should be strengthened. The weakness of their position is often only due to their lack of knowledge about legal and political structures surrounding them. The project should provide them with information on outside activities concerning their life.
It should be possible to create a process by which the villagers are allowed to clear ancestor land for some years, reducing the surface continually. At the same time, they should become motivated to work more in the valley. Ecologically sustainable, the rotational shifting cultivation practiced by the MNong Gar should be continued and channeled, as for the moment it is their only means of subsistence. Due to outside intervention and relative population pressure, it will not be sustainable much longer. The project should therefore develop a process that allows an economically viable way to guide the MNong Gar out of the forest, to protect the forest and respect government policies.
As mentioned by Gebert (1997), the project should pay a lot of attention on the fact that government programs tend to impose a gender separation. Automatically the signature of the husband is expected for any official loan or participation in any program, and no accord of the wife is expected or asked for. Women are not expected to participate in meetings, which are often not in the village but further away. This contradicts traditional decision making in MNong households, where the mutual understanding of both parts is expected, at least in major issues. Planting and seed selection is mainly decided by women, so the project should ask for the participation of women in this and other decision making processes. They will make themselves heard in the household anyway, but this will take time and create possible friction in the village. The project should try to encourage the women for more participation in non-household matters and explicitly ask for their support in decision making processes. Page 32 of 39
7 RESEARCH IN SIMILAR SOCIO-CULTURAL ENVIRONMENTS
7.1 Process Documentation
The research was prepared in several short meetings with Hanoi project staff. The strategy of involving both Vietnamese and German scientists and their roles were clarified. During the first discussion between us, the anthropologists, an outline of the research and the questions to be answered were agreed on. A Vietnamese counterpart was chosen. The reason for selecting Luu Hung was his experience in the research area.
In Hanoi, we met two times in the project office and discussed the planned research and methods to be used in the field. Concerning the methods, there was full agreement, as the study was planned as a standard short- term ethnographic research. It was based on interviews with key persons and focus groups, household and field visits, and including participating observation. We developed a sample of questions to be used as a guideline in the fieldwork, splitting up the greater problems into short annotated questions. This was not a questionnaire, but a guideline for questions in the interviews. The list was not considered exhaustive or fixed, and it changed during the process.
We started working in Buon Dung and met with the village heads there. We spent the following days interviewing the modern and the traditional village chiefs and members of the other focus groups in the villages of site one. After three days, we stayed overnight in the villages. We switched to the villages on site two, continuing our survey. After two weeks, Hung went to Krong No, where I joined him some days later.
During our stay in the communes we worked our way through the lines of the local authorities. Introduced to the district authorities by project staff, we made sure to be properly presented to the communes' representatives and the leaders of the villages. The co-operation and the good will of the officials on these levels were necessary for the research, although we worked only with the village leaders. We were well introduced and never had any problems, due to sound preparation by the project staff and the ability of Hung to work with the local authorities. We explained our roles, the aims and methods of our research, insisting on the importance of the research for the village and the co-operation between us, the village and the project. They agreed with the techniques of interviewing focus groups and other important persons in the villages.
The interviews went mainly smoothly. In-depth interviews need a lot of time. People in the villages are in general very busy in this time of the year. Trying to make interviews during their work disappoints them very quickly. They prefer to take the time when they know that they have it and to sit down and talk. The village chiefs, traditional as well as modern, appreciate speaking about their community, its history and its problems, and their views of the things around them.
The Vietnamese partner, Luu Hung, specialized on shifting cultivators in the Central Highlands, knew one of the communes from previous researches. This gave him an advantage in asking questions: translating concepts from one system of thought to another needs experience acquired by trial and error over time. We would have spent more time without this knowledge. Hung has studied abroad, so there were no major differences in training and understanding of the scientific approach between the two anthropologists. The field methods are mainly the same, and the survey did not require special analysis tools, which would need more time after information gathering.
Some comments on experiences we made during our research and which might be important for future, similar exercises:
We had no additional information on the situation in the villages and the project’s concrete activities in the area before we arrived in Buon Ma Thuot. This proved to be no serious problem during the fieldwork. Still, the project staff has a lot of knowledge on social and cultural conditions in the project area that could help prepare the field study. This knowledge should be used in further research efforts. The local authorities accepted our work and our plans. We were welcomed in the area and the villages and provided with the necessary support. The village heads were very co-operative and interested in our efforts. This needs to be "fostered" for future researches. Staying overnight in the villages creates two problems for the villagers: it takes their time and food. The main problem is rice, as for additional food they rely mainly on forest products. We brought some food and gave them money to refill their rice stack. The use of some of the villagers' resources will be difficult to change, as correct ethnographical work demands participation. The project staff assisted us in transportation and other logistical problems. Still, we had some minor problems with transportation. We had to go back to the district from time to time to take a shower. On Page 33 of 39
one occasion we could not go back to the villages the next day because the motorbike was in use by somebody else. The project should make sure that these small, but necessary resources are provided. It was difficult to identify concepts in the same way as they are asked for in the Terms of Reference. Ethnological work generally consists in identifying, analyzing and perhaps explaining "emic" concepts and domains, that means, using terms of the people the researcher talks to and identify their way of organizing the world. As it became clearer that there is no idea of resources management, degradation or sustainability, the ethnologists had to turn more to a classic approach and to identify the terminology, the perception of the environment, and the interaction with it.
7.2 Replicability
The research experience provided a mutual learning process for both the researchers and the project.
We had the possibility to learn about the project’s activities and their implications for the population. At the same time, we worked inside the project’s restricted timeframe and we had to work cost-effective. It was interesting to experience the possibility of working scientifically in a limited time, reducing the information gathered to the minimum necessary to answer the questions put forward in the Terms of Reference.
For the project, the research was a confrontation with "soft", non-technical methods and scientific approaches to its problems. The research proved that qualitative sciences can provide information to the project and that local knowledge can successfully be integrated into project strategies. It is possible to identify the aspects of local culture relevant for the project and to use these in further planning. For this, the project has to open up to the language and concepts used by the target group – the fact that the project staff started to learn the MNong language shows their interest in the culture of the local population.
The experiences with the research were very good. The co-operation between the foreign and the Vietnamese experts worked very well. There were no problems on either side, as both were very interested in the experience of this co-operation. The "added value" of this experience in terms of knowledge on each others methods and ideas outnumbered largely the linguistic difficulties. Although this experience can not be reproduced, as the conditions on other sites will be very different, it can definitely be used as a guideline.
The presence of two anthropologists in the field produced very good results, for further research this should be repeated. For the pure collection of information a foreigner might not be necessary, but according to our experience two people see more, and they can help each other out in moments when one lags behind. In anthropology, working alone might result in good literature, but it definitely reduces the accuracy of the research, as there is no control and misunderstandings are harder to detect. The different backgrounds of the two anthropologists allowed for a further focusing of the research.
For the foreign anthropologist the main problem was the lack of knowledge on the conditions in the research area. This was eased by the fact that the local partner is specialized on shifting cultivators in the area. For further research with similar bases this should be on top of the wish-list: one of the researchers should know the area by experience. It will be very difficult to find somebody who has as much experience as Hùng for all areas, but if both researchers are new to the area, they need at least:
A thorough briefing of the specific cultural context in which they will be working. This can be done in two or three days in the beginning of the field period, interviewing the project staff on, e.g., local history, political environment, internal relations in the villages, etc. It should also include a briefing on the projects and other organizations’ activities in the area. very good translators, who should be able not only to work as linguistic translators, but also have a basic idea of western thought and scientific working. Report writing took more time than anticipated, as there were three reports to write: one by Luu Hung, one by Markus Vorpahl, and then another one concocted from the first two. Although we are sure that the report reproduces exactly our findings, the way seems not to make sense. The researchers have to find a way to straighten this, for example, by discussing their findings during several days as kind of "report in progress", perhaps together with an interpreter.
This would reduce redundancy of work and misunderstandings or gross errors, as for most spots on this planet some research has already be done. To reduce time spent in the field trying to figure out basics, some time to look for literature and read it should be granted before sending the experts into the field. This would include time to interview local project staff on their knowledge. Reducing the time spent in the field limits the results. If it is necessary, it should be done by reducing the number of sites to study.
The timing was tight for an anthropological fieldwork, and future research the project and the researchers Page 34 of 39
should try to it in way the researchers can stay in one place. This would need some arrangement with the villagers, in case they are short of food and too busy in the period the visit takes place. Best would be to select one core village with the local people; this would be thoroughly studied. Based there, the anthropologists could visit other places, if considered necessary. The anthropologists should use some time in the beginning to collect basic information on site and arrange a working and living plan together with the villagers.
Reducing the time would result in reducing the depth of the study, as would reducing the number of consultants. Observing the above points, that is, investing some energy in thorough preparation and reduction of sites, tightening the schedule slightly seems possible. A virtual prolongation could be reached by not spending all time together, or by repeated shorter stays – this would mean a rise in travel cost, but one could observe several stages of the cultivation cycle. A further reduction of costs and resources does not seem possible other than by reducing number of consultants or shortening the consultancy, but this would have, as already said, serious consequences for the quality of the study. No other resources were involved, as there was almost no transport except a tiny motorbike, and staying in the villages does not demand project resources.
Overall it can be said that the research was well timed and prepared: On site, the project staff and the local authorities assisted as necessary, transport and translation needed were provided most of the time. If an experience in similar environment runs as smooth as this, it will be another successful study. Therefore, future studies of the same kind should try to use as far as possible the positive experiences of this one.
APPENDICES
A Glossary and Abbreviations
In the text there are words we used in Vietnamese or MNong, because they contain a certain idea which would suffer from translation. This was done to keep the text closer to the meaning system of the people. In general they transport concepts important in the context of the study, and are explained in the text. We repeat them here with a short explanation.
ÂpCamps for the mountain population during the American War, called "strategic hamlets"
Brii MNong for forest: dense, unlimited, inhabitable, but can be cultivated. There are several kinds of brii . Antonym is teh .
Boon (Bon) MNong for village.
Buôn The Vietnamese transcription of the word for village, boon .
§Þnh canh §Þnh c Resettlement and fixed cultivation, a government program to convince "nomadic tribes" and shifting cultivators to a settled live and wet rice cultivation. Started in 1968 and continues today.
Gìa làng Vietnamese for the "Old of the Village", the traditional village Headman.
Hä Vietnamese for Clan, a descendent sequence which is followed back to a faraway, mostly mystical ancestor. The people always share the same "family" name, the name of the father.
Kinh The majority of the population in Vietnam, about 85%, belong to the Kinh ethnic group. In general, when speaking about Vietnamese culture, the reference is the culture of the Kinh.
Lâm nghiÖp Vietnamese for forestry, silviculture. See Lâm trêng Page 35 of 39
Lâm trêng Forest department, forest enterprise. When the people spoke of Lâm trêng , they referred to the forest enterprise in the district town or other forest enterprises logging in their area.
Làng Vietnamese for Village. It is the only single administrative structure not composed of sub units. Headed by a modern village headman and its deputy.
Miir MNong for shifting cultivation field. Miir are the fields in the forest between burning and harvesting, during the cultivation period. Before and after they are brii .
Pul MNong for Clan, a descendent sequence which is followed back to a faraway, mostly mystical ancestor. The people always share the same "family" name, the name of the mother. They are considered to be close relatives, even when there is no known common ancestor, and are not allowed to marry each other.
RÉy The Vietnamese word for fields under shifting cultivation.
Sa brii "Eating Forest". MNong for using forest land by shifting cultivation, by cutting trees, burning them and cultivating crops on this land.
SMRLMB Sustainable Management of Resources in the Lower Mekong Basin Project.
Teh MNong for cultivated land. Restricted, limited, habitable, the place for the village and gardens. Opposite is brii .
Tem Teh Tem Brii The "land owner", person having a variety of responsibilities in land distribution and cultivation.
Uhraing bon The MNong word for gìa làng , the traditional village headman. Uhraing means old, bon (or buôn ) means village.
Vaik saa brii MNong, literally "rotating eating forest", denomination for the rotational movement through the years from one village cultivation area to the next.
Yang MNong spirits or genies, living in places in the forest or in stones. Their living places are not to be used for exploitation.
X· Commune. Composed of several villages làng. The commune is the lowest level of government structure in Vietnam.
B List of Forest Products collected in Ba Yang
Vegetables (Pai) Bamboo shoots Mushrooms (Sit) Tubers, Fruits (Mang) Roots (Bum) (Ple)
Pai sai (gnetum gnemon) Bang tlei (le) Sit suur Bum brii Ple ok (mai) (mango) rtep rlea teng ran rba tro (khoai môn) nam long mar (mango) lau um doh ngar (lô ô) kaik nay pong (mango) um tii la sap tap braak rsang teh rkiing kar (nøa) tap leng kar nung rtoong (fern) dzil tle srooin rkot trlah zrang loih Page 36 of 39
sar tlem rlau zrang lok ier ut tloong ken nrum peh trang mbuon mal mer kah to ser aar prang mho to dem rjong tlet rmuoi rsat sau biep rhieu gol tang riah tlai ling gol rsoi (For the oong mushrooms we gol rbut have a list of the reh places where each (rattan) species grows, gol dzel nothing more.) sieng (rattan) gol dzu srueik gol tria dzik gol ding sung tluot (gol = rattan) tlot tur nay (rau má) sar tur kaa sii dzur bup ndu iir ndret guih prin dzuon (eggplant) niar klap dzuon ndzang sa dzu rbak rguh dzu tran krieng dzu mbo (dzu = banana flowers) nder pruh tang daang pruh dzeng dzo bal ndzuk Page 37 of 39
treng
dzre
rlep, main
bruitch
ntier
C Relevant Literature
Condominas, Georges, 1957. Nous avons mangé la forêt de la pierre-génie Gôo. Paris: Mercure de France.
— ,(?). Agricultural Ecology in the Southeast Asian Savanna Region: the MNong Gar of Vietnam and their Social Space. (Exact Bibliography will be delivered later).
Deturck, Pol, 1997. Preliminary Assessment of Present and Potential Land Use System in Dak Phoi Commune, Dak Lak Province. Unpublished Report, GTZ and MRC.
Gebert, Rita, 1997. Gender Issues in the MRC-GTZ Sustainable Management of Resources in the Lower Mekong River Basin Project – Dak Lak Province, Vietnam. Unpublished Report, GTZ and MRC.
Luu Hung, 1996 . V¨n Hãa Cæ TruyÒn T©y Nguyªn – Traditional Culture in Tay Nguyen (Vietnamese Central Highlands). Hanoi: Ethnic Culture Publishing House.
Maurice, Albert, 1996. Les MNong des Hauts-Plateaux (Center Vietnam). Paris: Edition L’Harmatan.
Do Dinh Sam, 1994. Shifting Cultivation in Vietnam: its social, economic and environmental values relative to alternative land use. Hanoi: Land Use Working Group, Ministry of Forestry.
D Working Schedule
Hung Markus Date Where Remarks
Following names are the main informants. There have always been many other persons coming and going, providing valuable information. X X 02.06.97 Buon Ma Thuot Morning: Transfer Hanoi-BMT.
Afternoon: Meeting with project staff X X 03.06.97 Lien Son Morning: Transfer BMT-Lien Son
Afternoon: Preparation of question guidelines X X 04.06.97 Dak Phoi/Buon Dung Morning: Meeting Commune PC. Visiting households in Buon Dung
Afternoon: Y Nge Luk, Deputy village headman, Y Tap Cil, Party Secretary. X X 05.06.97 Dak Phoi/Buon Dung Y Par Che, Trad. village headman, Y Nge Luk, Deputy village headman, Y Tap Cil, Party Secretary X X 06.06.97 Dak Phoi/Buon Nam Y Hui Mbon, Village headman, Y Chu Lienhot, Deputy village headman, Y Mang Lieng, Trad. village headman, Y Bang Lieng, Veterans association, Y Truong Lieng, Farmer, Y Page 38 of 39
Chong Bon, Farmer X X 07.06.97 Dak Phoi/Buon Nam Morning: Y Bang Lieng, Y Mang Lieng
Afternoon: Y Bang Lieng, Y Mang Lieng, Y Hui Mbon, Y Chu Lienhot, Y Truong Lieng. Visiting households and fields X X 08.06.97 Dak Phoi/Buon Tlong Morning: Y Trong Sruk, Trad. village headman, Y Trung Tor, village headman, Y Sieng Triek, Deputy village headman
Afternoon: Y Trong Sruk, Y Trung Tor X X 09.06.97 Dak Phoi/Buon Tlong H'Trang Buon Krong, Farmer, H'Srong Buon Krong, Farmer, H'Mang Buon Krong, Farmer, H'Brung Buon Krong, Farmer, H'In Buon Krong, Student X X 10.06.97 Dak Phoi/Buon Dung Morning: Field visit
Afternoon: Y Par Che, Y Nge Luk, Y Tap Cil X X 11.06.97 Dak Phoi/Buon Lieng Keh Morning: Y Bang Cil, Trad. village headman, Y Krang Cil, Deputy village headman. Field visit, hybrid corn
Afternoon: Y Bang Cil X X 12.06.97 Dak Phoi/Buon Lieng Keh Markus going with women collecting forest vegetables and observing construction of fish trap, Hung visiting households X X 13.06.97 Dak Phoi/Buon Du Mah Y Chong Triek, Deputy village headman, Y Tieng Dak Chat, Trad. village headman (main information transferred from his wife, sitting in the back) X X 14.06.97 Dak Phoi/Buon Bu Yuk Y Nhang Pang Ting, Deputy trad. village headman. Back to Lien Son X X 15.06.97 Lien Son (No transport) Discussion of results, shifts in cultural patterns. Rewriting notes X X 16.06.97 Dak Phoi/Buon Ye Yuk Morning: Y Krang Ye, Deputy trad. village headman
Afternoon: Y Krang Ye, Y Tung Du, Deputy village headman X X 17.06.97 Lien Son/Buon Ma Thuot Morning: Elaborating further working plan
Afternoon: Revision of material in BMT X 18.06.97 Krong No/Krong No Transfer to Krong No, introduction to Commune PC X 19.06.97 Krong No/Lac Dong Y Sun Pang Ting, Village headman, Y Bong Dak Chat, Deputy village headman, Y Sar Pang Ting, Y Bang Rluk, Y Nieng Pang Ting, Trad. village headmen X 20.06.97 Krong No/Lac Dong Y Sun Pang Ting, Y Bong Dak Chat, Y Sar Pang Ting, Y Bang Rluk, Y Nieng Pang Ting X 21.06.97 Krong No/Lac Dong Y Sun Pang Ting, Y Bong Dak Chat, Y Sar Pang Ting, Y Bang Rluk, Y Nieng Pang Ting X 22.06.97 Krong No/Lac Dong Field and forest visit
X 22.06.97 Da Nang Study literature and reports on shifting cultivation Page 39 of 39
X X 23.06.97 Krong No/Ba Yang Morning: Transfer Ba Yang
Afternoon: Y Chong Buon Ya, Village headman, Deputy X X 24.06.97 Krong No/Ba Yang Morning: Y Chong Buon Ya, Village headman, Y Sieng Trei, Y Phoi Ndu, Y Ndrung Nja, Trad. village headmen
Afternoon: H'Mang Pang Ting, Farmer, H'Mong Nong, Farmer X X 25.06.97 Krong No/Ba Yang Morning: To Commune PC and Sar Luk
Afternoon: H'Pong Pang Ting, Healer X X 26.06.97 Krong No/Ba Yang Morning: Y Sieng Pang Ting, Shaman
Afternoon: Y Chong Buon Ya
Transfer to BMT X X 27.06.97 Buon Ma Thuot Meeting project staff, preparation of presentation X X 28.06.97 Buon Ma Thuot Presentation of findings
X X 29.06.97 Buon Ma Thuot Transfer Hanoi
X 30.06.97to Hanoi Report Writing 06.07.97 X 30.06.97 Hanoi Study reports, literature and writing report, to merge reports of the two consultants 11.07.97