Co-management/Shared Governance of Natural Resources and Protected Areas in Viet Nam Proceedings of the National Workshop on Co-management Concept and Practice in Viet Nam Soc Trang, 17 – 19 March 2010 Edited by Daniel G. Spelchan, Isabelle A. Nicoll & Nguyen Thi Phuong Hao Published by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH • Management of Natural Resources in the Coastal Zone of Soc Trang Province, Vietnam • Nature Conservation and Sustainable Management of Natural Resources in the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park Region, Vietnam Funded by The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) Editors Daniel G. Spelchan, Isabelle A. Nicoll and Nguyen Thi Phuong Hao Cover picture: Illustration from the 2010 GIZ drawing competition, drawn by Lý Trung Huyên ISBN: 978-604-9801-00-6 © giz, April 2011 Contents Foreword .......................................................................................................................................... ii Keynote Paper: Co-management and Shared Governance – the “Effective and Equitable Option” for Natural Resources and Protected Areas? .................... 5 Grazia Borrini-Feyerabend Co-management: Concepts and Practices in Viet Nam ................................................................ 27 Steven Swan Co-management: from Jargons to Realities ................................................................................. 45 Hoang Huu Cai Scalar dimensions of Co-management in Viet Nam: Some preliminary insights from the Mekong Delta .................................................................................................................. 51 Edmund Joo Vin Oh Poverty and Climate Change in the Mekong Delta: Selected findings from Soc Trang Province ...................................................................................................................... 63 Dennis Eucker Benefit-sharing Mechanism for Special-use Forests – Lessons learned from Bach Ma National Park ................................................................................................................. 75 Hans-Dieter Bechstedt, Duong Viet Tinh and Doan Bong Effective Mangrove Conservation through Co-management in the Mekong Delta, Viet Nam ....................................................................................................................................... 89 Klaus Schmitt Lessons Learned from Seven Years Implementing the Project ‘Strengthening of Participatory Water Management in Soc Trang Province’ .......................................................... 103 Pham Ba Vu Tung, Nguyen Van Hao, Tran Quoc Chuong, Nguyen Thi Hoai An, Pham Van Nam and Che Khanh Duy Overview of Legal Framework and Supporting Policies on Fisheries Co-Management in Viet Nam ...................................................................................................... 115 Nguyen Thuy Duong and Ngo Tien Chuong Co-Management in Fisheries in Viet Nam .................................................................................. 125 Nguyen Thi Kim Anh Fisheries Co-Management in Binh Dinh Province, Viet Nam ..................................................... 133 Peter Todd Property Rights and Rights Allocation for Resource Co-management in Tam Giang Lagoon, Viet Nam .................................................................................................... 145 Truong Van Tuyen, Nguyen Viet Tuan and Truong Quang Dung Development of Fishing Societies in Thua Thien Hue through Community-based Management ................................................................................................. 159 Nguyen Quang Vinh Binh i Foreword Co-management is a natural resource tool which is increasingly being used around the world in situations where there is a real need to protect natural resources while also providing for the livelihoods of local people who have traditionally relied upon these resources. Co-management involves two or more stakeholders (usually the government and local communities) coming together to negotiate how to manage a particular area or set of natural resources, agreeing upon a fair sharing of management functions, benefits, responsibilities and power. For co-management to operate effectively, active participation is required from all stakeholders, which often necessitates the empowerment of local communities in order for their voices to be heard at the negotiation table. Over the past 10 years, co-management has been trialled in Viet Nam in a variety of contexts, locations and institutional arrangements. These piloting initiatives have applied co-management to forestry, mangroves and fisheries, with varying degrees of success. However there has been a lack of opportunities for practitioners implementing these pilot initiatives to share experiences and learn from other applications of co-management both in Viet Nam and internationally. The ‘National Workshop on Co-management Concept and Practice in Vietnam’, held in Soc Trang on 17-19 March 2010, was designed to provide such a forum. During the workshop, practitioners were able to exchange experiences, ideas, failures, successes and lessons learnt, and were able to identify future challenges for the approach in Viet Nam. These proceedings are a collection of papers from contributing workshop presenters. The papers outline practical experiences of implementing co-management in Viet Nam, as well as considerations for future applications. In the keynote and first paper of the proceedings, Grazia Borrini-Feyerabend discusses the origins of natural resource conflict while highlighting the potential benefits of co-management/shared governance arrangements in this context. In the following paper, Steven Swan outlines the current understanding and general applications of co-management in Viet Nam, as well as provides an overview of the evolving national legislative, policy and regulatory framework. Following this are three more conceptual papers which: describe future challenges for the co-management approach in Viet Nam, including changing the role of local communities in natural resource management (Hoang Huu Cai); question the ultimate end to what co-management and its applications should be aiming to achieve (Edmund Oh); and explore the relationships between poverty, vulnerability, climate change and the impacts of economic growth policies in Viet Nam – to which co-management offers a potential solution to poverty reduction and resolving environmental conflict, particularly in the light of forecasted consequences of climate change (Dennis Eucker). In the next section the proceedings move into more specific applications of co-management in Viet Nam to forestry, specifically Special-use Forests (Hans-Dieter Bechstedt), mangroves (Klaus Schmitt) and water (Pham Ba Vu Tung). In the final section Nguyen Thuy Duong provides a review of national legislation related to fisheries co-management, while Nguyen Thi Kim Anh provides a general overview of fisheries co-management and Peter Todd, Truong Van Tuyen and Nguyen Quang Vinh Binh detail more specific examples of the application of co-management to fisheries in Viet Nam. ii Co-management/Shared Governance in Viet Nam The papers in these proceedings highlight the wide-spread application of co-management in different settings in Viet Nam, while they also emphasise the need for clear definition, understanding and adoption of terms related to co-management, including closely related concepts of collaborative management, shared governance, community-based conservation, participatory management and community-based management. The papers also outline a number of current and future challenges facing co-management practitioners in Viet Nam, including: • Empowering local communities; • Realigning traditional views on hierarchy and power; • The lack of an enabling legal framework; • The lack of understanding of co-management; and • Developing the capacity of local communities and authorities. We hope that the workshop and proceedings will contribute towards a greater and more cohesive understanding of co-management in Viet Nam, with the exchange of experiences and lesson learnt enabling practitioners to address current and future challenges and enhance applications of the approach. Daniel Spelchan Isabelle Nicoll Foreword iii iv Co-management/Shared Governance in Viet Nam Keynote Paper: Co-management and Shared Governance – the “Effective and Equitable Option” for Natural Resources and Protected Areas? Grazia Borrini-Feyerabend1 Vice-Chair of the IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy, www.iucn.org; Coordinator of the ICCA Consortium, www.iccaforum.org; and President of Paul K. Feyerabend Foundation, www.pkfeyerabend.org “Imagine you want to shoot an arrow. The farther back you pull the bowstring, the farther the arrow flies…The same is true for our own understanding and vision…The farther back we look into history, the farther we can see into our future…”. Through this phrase, attributed to an American indigenous leader, I would like to invite you to a journey towards your distant past and, from there, to take inspiration for the present and future of natural resources in Viet Nam. Through millennia, the main managers of natural resources – and decision makers about them – have been the human communities that gained their sustenance from a careful interaction with the surrounding nature. They were gatherers, hunters, herders, peasants, fishers, forest users, users and keepers of oases and water