Why May Forest Devolution Not Benefit the Rural Poor_Forest Entitlements in Vietnam’s Central Highlands

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Why May Forest Devolution Not Benefit

the Rural Poor? Forest Entitlements

in Vietnams Central Highlands

THOMAS SIKORUniversity of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

and

TAN QUANG NGUYEN *

Van Quan, Van Mo, Ha Dong, Ha Tay, Viet Nam

Summary. This paper examines the effects of forest devolution on the livelihoods of the ruralpoor. The paper analyzes changes in forest endowments and entitlements among householdsbrought about by forestland allocation in two villages of Vietnams Central Highlands. Its resultsindicate that not only the nature of devolved rights but also broader political and economic pro-cesses influence the extent and distribution of benefits. Even where devolution generates benefitsto local people in poor areas, local power relations and the institutions regulating access to produc-tive resources may constrain the ability of the poorest of the poor to take advantage of devolu-tion.2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Key words devolution, forest, livelihoods, poverty, Vietnam, Asia

1. INTRODUCTION

Two issues are currently high on the interna-tional forestry agenda. The first issue deals withcontributions of forests to livelihoods of therural poor. The focus on poverty is promptedby the target of halving extreme poverty set at

the UN Millennium Summit in 2000. The Mil-lennium goals have led to a reorientation ofinternational development assistance, forcingforesters to justify the contributions of theirprojects to the overarching goal of povertyreduction (Sunderlin et al., 2005). Existinganalyses suggest that the actual contributionsof forests to rural livelihoods are highly varied(Angelsen & Wunder, 2003; Byron & Arnold,1999).

The second issue is about the distribution ofcontrol over forests. Governments around the

world have initiated devolution programs thattransfer forest management from centralizedstate bureaucracies to local actors (White &

Martin, 2002). The programs do not just seekto involve local people in decisions made by out-siders, but imply that local actors themselvesmake decisions about forest management. Inpractice, there is a tremendous variation in thedesigns and outcomes of these programs (Edm-unds & Wollenberg, 2003; Ribot, 2004).

This paper connects these two issues byexamining the effects of forest devolution onthe livelihoods of the rural poor. There aregood reasons for combining the inquiry into

*We thank Stefanie Engel, Jeff Fox, William Sunderlin,

and Arun Agrawal for insightful comments. Thanks also

to four anonymous reviewers, in particular the one

whose excellent comments helped us improve our paper

significantly. The Tropical Ecology Support Program of

the German Agency for Technical Cooperation and the

Emmy Noether-Program of Deutsche Forschungsgeme-inschaft provided funding for research and writing.

Final revision accepted: November 27, 2006.

World Development Vol. 35, No. 11, pp. 20102025, 20072007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

0305-750X/$ - see front matter

www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddevdoi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2006.11.011

2010


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the contributions of forests to the livelihoods ofthe rural poor with an analysis of devolution.Not only do both issues rank high on the inter-national agenda, but there is also the questionof how, if at all, forest policy and programs

can devolve forest management and contributeto rural poverty reduction at the same time.Livelihood benefits are a key rationale formany devolution programs (Meinzen-Dick &Knox, 2001). There is also a growing evidencethat devolution programs cause changes in lo-cal livelihoods, both in positive and negativeways (Edmunds & Wollenberg, 2003; Shackl-eton & Campbell, 2001).

The emphasis in this paper is on the questionof why devolution may or may not benefit therural poor, in particular the poorest of the

poor. We seek to uncover underlying pro-cesses that differentiate the effects of devolutionon the livelihood contributions of forests. Weconsider our approach complementary to re-search on patterns in the relations between for-ests and livelihoods (e.g., Angelsen & Wunder,2003; Cavendish, 2000) and assessments ofdevolution impacts (e.g., Jagger, Pender, &Gebremedhin, 2005; Shackleton & Campbell,2001). These efforts have generated importantempirical evidence about the associations be-tween forests and forest devolution, on the

one hand, and rural livelihoods, on the otherhand. Yet they do not bring to light the pro-cesses that create variation in the livelihoodcontributions of forests.

This paper draws on empirical insights fromforest devolution in Vietnams Central High-lands. Since 1999, the authorities of Dak Lakprovince have undertaken forestland alloca-tion, which has transferred rights and respon-sibilities on natural forests to local people in asimilar fashion as Chinas devolution program(Dachang & Edmunds, 2003). Concern for lo-

cal livelihoods, in particular those of indige-nous ethnic groups, has played an importantrole in motivating forest devolution in DakLak. Forestland allocation in Dak Lak, there-fore, offers an opportunity to examine how for-est devolution affects rural livelihoods.

The paper is structured as follows: The nextsection introduces the forest entitlementsframework to be used in the analysis of devolu-tion effects. After brief discussions of researchmethods in Section3 and background in Sec-tion4, we then turn our attention to the results

of the empirical study in Vietnam. We discussthe effects of devolution on the livelihoods ofpoor households with forest titles in Section 5

and examine the differentiation of endowmentsand entitlements among local householdstitleholders or notin Section 6. The paper con-cludes with a discussion of key findings andpolicy implications.

2. FOREST ENTITLEMENTS

In an article published in 1999, Leach et al.suggest a framework that, appropriately modi-fied, can help examine the effects of forest devo-lution on the livelihoods of the rural poor.Building onSen (1981), they propose an envi-ronmental entitlements framework to explor-ing social and environmental dynamics incommunity-based natural resource manage-

ment. Key concepts in this framework areendowments, which are defined as the rightsand resources that social actors have, and enti-tlements, referring to alternative sets of utili-ties derived from environmental goods andservices over which social actors have legiti-mate effective command (Leach, Mearns, &Scoones, 1999, p. 233).

Environmental entitlements analysis distin-guishes between the processes differentiatingendowments and those leading to variation inentitlements. The processes by which actors gain

endowments and those by which actors trans-form endowments into entitlements require sep-arate analysis. By implication, endowments maynot translate into entitlements, as the latter de-pend on many factors besides the distributionof endowments (Leachet al., 1999, p. 233).

Endowments reflect the influence of a broadset of institutions lending legitimacy to claimson natural resources, including the wholerange of socially sanctioned, as well as for-mallegal institutional mechanisms for resourceaccess and control (Leachet al., 1999, p. 233).

Differences in local peoples forest endowmentsbetween localities, therefore, may derive fromvariation in statutory rights (e.g., Agrawal &Ostrom, 2001) and forest use regulations (e.g.,Weyerhauser, Kahrl, & Su, 2006). They mayalso result from different customary regulationsin forestry (e.g.,Wollenberg et al., 2006). Simi-larly, differences in peoples forest endowmentswithin a locality may originate from state regu-lations and programs (e.g., Dachang & Edm-unds, 2003), local power structures (e.g.,Agrawal & Gupta, 2005), and gender relations

(e.g.,Agarwal, 2001).Entitlements, in turn, are conditioned by a

broad range of institutions regulating access

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to and control over productive resources (la-bor, capital, technology, etc.) and markets. Dif-ferences in access to productive resourcescondition the bargaining power of local com-munities and logging companies in negotiations

over logging contracts (Engel & Palmer, 2006).Variation among local households may alsodifferentiate forest entitlements even where for-est endowments are distributed in a relativelyegalitarian manner, such as in Nepals forestuser groups (Malla, Neupane, & Branney,2003). Although all members hold similar for-est endowments, wealthier households tend toextract more fodder, trees, and leaf litter fromforests than poor households. Wealthier house-holds derive larger entitlements because theypossess the means to exploit forests and can

make better use of forest resources as inputsinto crop cultivation and animal husbandry.

This observation connects with the reminderbyByron and Arnold (1999)that local peopleare not uniformly forest dependent but usedifferent goods and services supplied by forestsin different ways. They may use the goods andservices for direct consumption, inputs for agri-cultural production, and materials for houseconstruction. In addition, the relative signifi-cance of forest resources varies in relation to po-tential substitutes, that is, other sources of food,

fodder, agricultural inputs, and constructionmaterials. Also, where forest resources serve asinput into agricultural or industrial production,they are in different relationships to complemen-tary inputs and other productive resources re-quired for production. Local people, therefore,are in different positions to turn forest endow-ments into entitlements, depending on the natureof local production systems and the institutionsgoverning access to productive resources.

For our analysis, we modify the environmen-tal entitlements approach in three significant

ways (seeFigure 1). 1 First, our analysis placesactors at the center. Our focus is on the socialdifferentiation of actors, highlighting how so-cially differentiated actors possess differentcapacities to gain endowments and entitle-ments. Their endowments and entitlements, inturn, affect the resources available to them inthe future.

Second, we distinguish the endowments asso-ciated with forest from the more general re-sources commanded by social actors. In ourforest entitlements analysis, endowments refer

to the rights and responsibilities that social ac-tors have with respect to the multiple goodsand services provided by forests. Actors re-

sources, in contrast, refer to their commandover productive resources beyond the forest,

that is, labor, capital, agricultural land, skills,etc. We distinguish forest endowments from ac-tors other resources because of our particularinterest in the effects of forest devolution.

Third, we define forest entitlements in morecomprehensive terms, including sets of utilitiesirrespective of whether or not social actors havelegitimate command over them. In this, we fol-low the lead of Ribot and Peluso (2003), whoargue for a more comprehensive analysis ofthe actors ability to benefit from natural re-sources. The ability to benefit derives from a

variety of rights-based access and relational ac-cess mechanisms, including illegal forms. Thisextension seems particularly appropriate forthe analysis of forest entitlements, as access toforest is often gained outside socially sanc-tioned ways (e.g., de Jong, Ruiz, & Becker,2006).2

Our forest entitlements framework, finally,motivates us to turn the initial questionwhydevolution may or may not benefit the ruralpoorinto two interlinked but analytically dis-tinct questions. First, how do the statutory

rights accorded in the course of forest devolu-tion create contributions to local livelihoodsin poor areas, that is, translate into forestendowments and entitlements for poor titleholders? And second, how are forest endow-ments and entitlements differentiated among lo-cal peopletitle holders or notwith whatconsequences for the livelihoods of the poor-est of the poor?

3. RESEARCH METHODS

The research employs two analytical strate-gies, a qualitative and a quantitative one. The

Social actors with

different resources

Forest

endowments

Forest

entitlements

Devolved forest Institutions

Institutions

Figure 1. The forest entitlements framework.

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qualitative strategy is intended to generate in-sights into the concrete processes and practicesthrough which forest devolution affects forestendowments as well as the institutions thatinfluence the translation of forest endowments

into entitlements. Special emphasis is given tothe analysis of forest endowments, that is, therights and responsibilities among social actorswith respect to the devolved forest, as theseare difficult to quantify. The quantitative strat-egy serves to corroborate the insights from thequalitative analysis by analyzing the distribu-tion of forest entitlements among actors. Itquantifies the relationships between actors re-sources and their entitlements. In this way,the use of two analytical strategieswhich isadmittedly unusualis intended to strengthen

the robustness of the research findings.Fieldwork was conducted in two villages. We

selected one village that was located in an areathat had experienced rapid rates of economicgrowth driven by high-value commercial agri-culture and high rates of in-migration. Theother village was situated in a more remotearea, where villagers primarily produced subsis-tence and low-value commercial crops andmigration was low. We selected the villages onthe basis of the type of agriculture and inci-dence of migration because we expected these

factors to condition the nature of peoples for-est dependence (in the sense ofByron & Ar-nold, 1999) as well as the degree of competition over access to forest. We con-ducted fieldwork in two villages only for rea-sons of time. The qualitative strategy, inparticular, required extensive stays in the vil-lages, which made the inclusion of further vil-lages impossible. Within the villages, wefocused on the comparison of households asthe primary social actors. This was motivatedby practical reasons (male researchers faced

problems to talk to female villagers) and ourobservation that endowments and entitlementswere shared among individual household mem-bers on relatively equitable terms.

Four sets of variables are at the core of theresearch: statutory rights, forest endowments,forest entitlements, and household resources.

Statutory rights are measured by the pos-session of a forestland title, the area ofdevolved forestland (in ha), and the volumeof devolved timber (in cubic meters). In thecase of user groups, all member households

are assumed to hold equal shares in thedevolved forest, as stated in Vietnameselegislation.

Forest endowments are described in quali-tative terms only, analyzing the differentia-tion of different types of rights to forestlandand trees among local households. Forest entitlements are measured by the

area of cultivated land (in ha) and valuesof agricultural and timber harvests (in Viet-namese Dong, VND) on the devolved forest-land,including those sold and consumed athome. 3 The calculation of agricultural har-vest value considers all crops grown ondevolved forestland. The calculation of tim-ber harvest value includes the primary threespecies only. Harvest volumes are translatedinto values by using the price data collectedfrom the local statistical office. The resultingvalue data may not be absolutely accurate

but should, in combination with the areadata, be sufficiently reliable to warrant com-parisons across households and over time. The research considers a broad range ofhousehold resources in the qualitative andquantitative analysis (see the Appendix onthe latter). The resources of particular inter-est are wealth (measured by ownership ofmajor assets using a proxy indicator), laborcapacity (measured in labor units equivalentto the number of adult laborers or theweighted labor contributions of all house-

hold members, depending on the activity athand), and political position (using adummy indicating whether a householdmember worked in the local state adminis-tration or not). These are of particular inter-est because they help distinguish betweenmore temporary differences among actors(in the case of labor) and more permanentones (in the case of wealth and politicalposition).

Data collection took place from March toSeptember 2002. Nguyen stayed in the two vil-

lages during this period, conducting numerousinformal conversations with villagers, observ-ing villagers use of the devolved forests, andlistening to their discussions about who hadwhat right in the multiple goods provided bythe forests. Nguyen also conducted a series ofkey informant interviews with villagers, officialsfrom the local authorities, and staff from theState Forest Enterprises. He collected data onthe distribution of statutory rights, forest areas,and timber volumes from the State ForestEnterprises, which had implemented forest

devolution two years before. At the end of eachvillage stay, he executed a household censusabout their resources, production practices,

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statutory rights, and forest uses (giving a totalof 95 households in the two villages). He usedrecall techniques to obtain comparable datafor the last year before devolution (1999). 4

The collected data are analyzed using both

qualitative and quantitative techniques. Thequalitative strategy starts with local peoplesown explanations and simple comparisons offorest uses and rights before and after devolutionfor different types of households. It then pro-ceeds to build explanations about the effects ofdevolution on endowments and the mechanismsdifferentiating entitlements, testing those onspecific household cases. The quantitative strat-egy uses correlation analysis to examine thedistribution of endowments among households.It employs multivariate Heckman two-stage

regression analysis to investigate entitlementpatterns. A brief discussion of the Heckmanmodel is presented in theAppendix. 5

4. FOREST DEVOLUTION IN DAK LAKAND THE STUDY SITES

The Vietnamese government embarked onmajor reforms in the forest sector in the early1990s. A key component of the reforms wasthe devolution of forests to households and lo-

cal state units by way of forestland allocation.Just as for agricultural land, the 1993 LandLaw stipulated that the state should issuerenewable long-term land use rights for forest-land. Yet much of the allocated forestlandwas given to local state units, many of whichwere the State Forest Enterprises that had beenin charge of management already before. Ifhouseholds received forestland titles then itwas exclusively for barren land.

The national reforms did not have much ef-fect on the distribution of control over forests

in the Central Highlands province Dak Lakthroughout the 1990s. After reunification in1975, the central government had promotedState Forest Enterprises to manage the prov-inces ample timber stocks to supply nationalreconstruction and generate foreign currencyearnings. The Enterprises were also intendedto bring about economic development amongthe local population made up mostly of ethnicminority groups. Over the years the Enterprisesbecame powerful political players in Dak Lak,being more influential than the local state

authorities at commune and district levels.They were often resented by local people, asthe Enterprises sought to terminate local uses

of the forest. Being a source of cultivable land,timber, and other resources, the forest wasessential for the livelihood of Dak Laks indig-enous population.

Dak Laks forests also came under increasing

pressure from a rapidly growing number of mi-grants. Large flows of ethnic Vietnamese mi-grants reached Dak Lak in search for land inthe 1990s, as the previous controls on unregu-lated migration no longer worked. The migra-tion entered into competition for agriculturalland with the indigenous groups, driving a rapidexpansion of land under cultivation. Wide-spread forest clearing caused rising distress onthe side of the provincial authorities and evendrew the ire of the visiting prime minister in1998. In addition, concerns mounted that indig-

enous ethnic groups were increasingly marginal-ized by economically more successful migrants.

The authorities of Dak Lak took the bold stepin this situation to initiate the allocation ofstanding forest to households belonging toindigenous ethnic groups. In 1998, the provin-cial Department of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment told selected State Forest Enter-prises to allocate small forest blocks to individ-ual households or groups of households. Inreturn for the forestland titles, the recipientshad to sign forest protection contracts commit-

ting to the sustainable management of the allo-cated forest and its protection against outsideencroachment. The provincial authorities in-tended forestland allocation to serve two pri-mary objectives: halt deforestation andenhance ethnic minority livelihoods. By theend of 2000, forestland allocation in Dak Lakhad been implemented in thirteen ethnic minor-ity villages, transferring approximately 7,100 hato 339 individual households and 19 householdgroups consisting of 149 households.

The two study villages Cham B and Diet were

among those covered in the first round of forest-land allocation. Both villages were classified aspoor, as average living standards were belowthe national poverty line. The villages popula-tion largely consisted of indigenous ethnicgroups, 38 Ede households in Cham B and 43Jarai households in Diet. These were comple-mented by four and 10 households of ethnicVietnamese migrants, respectively, giving a totalof 278 and 337 people in the two villages. Bothvillages lived mainly from agriculture, growingsome rice for home consumption and vari-

ous crops for sale. The surrounding forestsserved villagers as a source of additionalland, agricultural inputs, fodder, and food

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supplements. Yet the villagers were legally ex-cluded from the forests, which were under themanagement of State Forest Enterprises. Thelegal exclusion did not prevent the villagersfrom cutting trees for subsistence uses, but it

effectively obstructed them from clearing agri-cultural fields in the forests.

The local production systems were somewhatdifferent, however, as Diet was oriented towardthe production of high-value crops (coffee andpepper) and Cham B cultivated rice for homeconsumption and corn for sale primarily. Dietwas located on a road connecting Dak Lak tothe neighboring province Gia Lai and couldbe reached by car year-round. Villagers were

just in the process of switching from coffee topepper in the late 1990s after a slump in coffee

prices. Their primary interest in the surround-ing dipterocarp forest was to extract trees foruse as poles in the pepper plantations. In con-trast, Cham B was located in a rather remotearea, making access to the village difficult dur-ing the rainy season. Its inhabitants were pri-marily interested in the surrounding evergreenforest as a source of land for expanding theircorn and rice fields.

The 95 households in the two villages demon-strated marked differences in their access to pro-ductive resources. While one household did not

include any fully abled laborer, others possessedup to six full laborers and additional supple-mentary laborers. Twenty-seven householdslived in good-quality houses, indicating thatthey were wealthier than the other villagers. Incontrast, other households lived in temporaryhuts or stayed in their parents house. Twenty-six owned tractors, which they used to transportagricultural harvests and timber. Twelve ofthem even owned at least a motorbike, a TVset, and furniture. Twelve households includedmembers holding a position in the local state

administration. Thirty-seven asserted cultiva-tion rights on the allocated forestland basedon prior use. Correspondingly, production sys-tems were different among households. The sizeof upland fields ranged from 0.2 to 6.7 ha perhousehold. Forty-eight households had estab-lished pepper plantations in Diet, yet only halfof them had planted more than 100 poles.

5. THE BENEFITS OF FORESTLANDALLOCATION TO RECIPIENTS

Once forestland allocation was finished, a to-tal of 58 households had received new statutory

rights to forest in Cham B and Diet. They in-cluded 20 households with individual forest-land titles in Diet and 38 households in ChamB, who were given joint titles in five usergroups. Taken together, the forestland titles re-

ferred to a total area of around 900 ha, roughly16 ha per household, and a total standing tim-ber volume of approximately 60,000 cubic me-ter, equivalent to an average of 1,000 cubicmeter per households. By way of allocation,the state granted the forest recipients the rightto convert a portion of the forestland to agri-cultural fields. 6 The state also entitled themto exploit the timber on their land if they sub-mitted a management plan for approval to theresponsible state agency. In return, forest recip-ients had to sign unremunerated forest protec-

tion contracts, in which they committed tomanage the forests in a sustainable fashionand protect them against intrusion by outsid-ers.

The extension of statutory rights did nottranslate into analogous changes in endow-ments. Two years after devolution, endow-ments remained the object of intensenegotiations among local actors. They werecontested among local actors because forestrecipients assertion of their new rights wasimmediately challenged by other actors. Actors

who had used forestland and trees togetherwith the forest recipients in the past did not ac-cept the intended exclusion from the allocatedforests (Sikor & Tran, 2007).

As for land, people from neighboring indige-nous villages immediately challenged theassignment of forestland to villagers fromCham B and Diet only. They referred to cus-tomary rights they held on the allocated forestsbased on prior use. In the past, Cham B hadformed a single village with the neighboring vil-lage Cham A, and people from both villages

had used the allocated forest. Similarly, villag-ers from the surrounding villages of TLy andKri did not want to accept their exclusion fromforest that they had used together with peoplefrom Diet in the past. The same dynamics ofexclusion and inclusion also took place withinthe two villages. In Cham B, many householdsdid not accept their assignment to a particularuser group and claimed customary rights tothe forest allocated to another group. In Diet,some households contested the assignment ofparticular forest areas to other households.

More importantly, the villagers saw little mean-ing in the assignment of forest to individualhouseholds.

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The contestation of tree endowments tooksimilar forms. Indigenous villagers without ti-tles refused to accept their exclusion from theallocated forests. In addition, migrant house-holds living in the two and other neighboring

villages objected to the intended exclusion. Inthe past, they had extracted trees for subsis-tence use from the forests with approval bythe Ede and Jarai. Now, they did not heed de-mands by Ede and Jarai forest recipients tostop using the forests. It was not difficult forthem to cut trees as the forest recipients werenot able to monitor forest use. Even where for-est recipients detected extractive activities bymigrants, their demands for legal prosecutionwas ignored by the local state administration.

Both land and tree endowments remained

under negotiation between the forest recipientsand the state. The forest recipients objected tothe limitations on forest conversion and timberharvests associated with allocation. Togetherthey claimed customary rights to the allocatedforests and refuted the legitimacy of the restric-tions imposed by the state. Their claims provedlargely successful in the case of the extraction oftrees and cultivation of fields for subsistenceuses, as neither the Forest Enterprise nor the lo-cal state administration had the means to effec-tively monitor peoples activities in the forest.

In addition, they were reluctant to confront vil-lagers subsistence claims considering the statedobjective of forestland allocation to improvethe livelihoods of indigenous ethnic groups.Villagers could not sell trees, however, becauseof tight state controls of the transport and tradeof timber.

As a result, there was a clear difference be-tween the changes in forest recipients endow-ments on land and those on trees broughtabout by forestland allocation. Forest recipi-ents endowments on trees did not change much

after allocation, as other indigenous people andmigrants continued to extract trees from theforests for subsistence uses just as before alloca-tion. In contrast, forest recipients endowmentson land increased significantly. In the past, thestate had prohibited forest conversion and en-forced the prohibition strictly. Now, allocationprepared the material and moral grounds forforest recipients to claim new land endow-ments. These endowments gained further valuethrough the nature of local customary claims,as those excluded migrants from cultivation in

the forest.Just as the changes in endowments differed

between land and trees, so did the entitlementson land and trees develop differently for theforest recipients. As for land, entitlements in-creased significantly in a matter of a few yearsonly (see Figure 2). Forest recipients clearedan additional area of 0.7 ha per household dur-ing 19992002. This was equivalent to morethan one-fourth of their total upland fields. Al-ready in 2001, they generated an additionalaverage harvest of 1,100,000 VND (for sale

and subsistence, equivalent to 74 USD) ontop of the 1999 harvest. 7 Agricultural harvestson the allocated forest thus contributed 13% ofhouseholds total income in 2001. Cultivationon the forestland was highly attractive tovillagers because its soil was very fertile, landwas scarce, and people had access to the

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

agricultural harvest timber harvest

('000VND/household)

1999

19992001

2001

Figure 2. Agricultural and timber harvests during 19992001.

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complementary resources labor and capital(tools and seed). Some forest recipients eventook advantage of agricultural expansion to sellsome of their fields outside the allocated forestto migrants.

The increase in forest recipients tree entitle-ments was more modest than the gains fromagricultural expansion (seeFigure 2). 8 During19992001, forest recipients increased timberharvest on the allocated forestland, gaining anadditional income of 300,000 VND (20 USD)per household on average. They made use ofthe trees in house construction and the rapidlygrowing pepper plantations. The trees raisedthe total contribution of the allocated forest-land to almost 20% of household income.

These results suggest an answer to the first

question posed above. Forestland allocationenhanced not only forest recipients statutoryrights but also their endowments and entitle-ments. Devolution, therefore, contributed tothe livelihoods of poor forest recipients. Atthe same time, the influence of devolution wasstrongly mediated by the political economiccontext. Forest recipients endowments werethe subject of intense negotiations taking placewithin local power relations. Their entitlementsreflected the role of forestland and trees in localproduction systems. The influence of the polit-

ical economic context was also the reason forthe different effects of devolution on the endow-ments and entitlements with respect to land andtrees. Land endowments and entitlements in-creased more because devolution did away withthe effective control of forest exercised by theState Forest Enterprises in the past, local cus-toms restricted cultivation rights to indigenouspeople, and fertile land was a scarce resource.

6. DIFFERENTIATION OF

ENTITLEMENTS AMONGVILLAGERS

This section now turns to the second questionidentified at the beginning: how are endow-ments and entitlements differentiated among lo-cal people, with what consequences for thelivelihoods of the poorest of the poor? Weexamine this question first by way of qualitativeanalysis, looking at the dynamics of entitlementdifferentiation. We investigate the dynamicsaround land in Cham B, because land was the

primary forest resource there, and the dynamicsaround trees inDiet, where trees were the pri-mary resource. 9 Our analysis now includes

both the 58 forest recipients as well as the 37households that did not get any forestland ti-tles.

(a) Differentiation of land entitlements

in Cham B

When the State Forest Enterprise staff an-nounced the plan to allocate the forest blockof 570 ha, they found the villagers from ChamB very interested in receiving the forest. Thestaff consecutively declared that all Ede house-holds would be eligible to receive forestland,excluding the four ethnic Vietnamese migranthouseholds residing in Cham B at that time.The focus was on the Ede in the village becausethey had presumably been attached to that for-

est for generations and depended more on theforest than the migrants. The Enterprise fur-thermore decided to allocate the forest to fiveuser groups including all Ede households fromCham B. The blocks were of relatively similarsize, but they varied by the suitability of theland for cultivation and density of trees.

As allocation proceeded, a virtual rush on theforest set in. Members of the five user groupsclaimed the right to clear part of the allocatedforest as stipulated in the allocation documents.Other villagers invoked their customary rights

to open up fields on land that they had culti-vated in the past, even if that was now locatedon a parcel given to another group. As alsohouseholds from the neighboring Cham A as-serted customary rights of prior use (see above),a dramatic rush on the forest developed withinshort time. Villagers from Cham A and ChamB sought to secure their rights by clearing land,

justifying their actions with reference to cus-tomary rights and state regulations. These justi-fications were flexible enough to provide all Edevillagers with endowments to use the allocated

forest for cultivation. The rush to clear a plotof forestland came about because physicaloccupation was the only way to effectively as-sert ones right. The endowments did not in-clude the right to keep others out nor rentforestland to others.

Despite this relatively egalitarian distributionof endowments, only 29 out of the 42 house-holds opened up fields. The fields of these 29had highly variable sizes and produced a widerange of corn and rice harvests. The causes ofthis variation in entitlements were rooted in

the technology of upland production and thenature of institutions regulating access to pro-ductive resources in Cham B. The cultivation

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of corn and rice, as practiced in Cham B, de-manded high labor inputs. Field sizes were lar-gely determined by how much labor wasavailable to clear forest within a relatively shortperiod suitable for land preparation. The con-

version of one ha of forest into an agriculturalfield took about 2535 labor days, dependingon the density of the forest. Most of the re-quired labor had to come from the householditself, in particular the adults living in thehousehold, as more regularized forms of laborhire were uncommon in Cham B.

Labor was short in Cham Bs households.Many households already worked large uplandfields outside the allocated forestland, demand-ing all labor available. The common practice oflabor exchange did not alleviate the labor con-

straint on field sizes because labor inputsgained from relatives and neighbors usually de-manded an equivalent effort in return. Onlybetter-off households were able to achieve anet gain in labor, as they could offer the useof a water buffalo or tractor in return for laborinputs on terms favorable to them. They werealso able to replace some labor by the use ofmore advanced technology in land preparation,particularly chains saws for the removal of lar-ger trees.

As a result, labor capacity and wealth were

crucial determinants for a households abilityto work agricultural fields in the allocated for-est (seeFigure 3). The more labor householdscontained the larger amounts they were likelyto harvest from fields located in the forest. Sim-ilarly, households considered medium andwealthy by local standards harvested larger

amounts than very poor and poor ones. 10 Thisallowed better-off households to benefit signifi-cantly from forestland allocation. Nevertheless,the entitlements of the poorer strata also in-creased, although to a lesser degree than the

better-off.

(b) Differentiation of tree entitlements in Diet

Diet was among the first villages to be in-cluded in forestland allocation in Dak Lak. Justas in Cham B, the staff of Ea Hleo State ForestEnterprise declared at the beginning that onlyJarai households were eligible to receive partof the forest of 330 ha. In contrast to ChamB, they furthermore decided that only 20 house-holds would be able to receive forest and that

they would be allocated their parcels individu-ally. They largely left the selection of house-holds to the leadership of Diet. As a result,only 20 out of 53 households in Diet endedup receiving forestland titles during allocation.They included four households with membersserving in the state administration, one house-hold with a retired state official, and 11 house-holds with close kinship relations to these.

Despite its unequal nature, allocation had noeffect on the distribution of endowments amongvillagers. Access to the forest allocated to the 20

households remained open to all people fromDiet and neighboring villages regardless of theregulations. The 20 new forest holders acceptedthe right to extract trees claimed by their fellowJarai villagers in Diet. They did not approve ofextraction by ethnic Vietnamese from Diet andother villages, as by Jarai from neighboring vil-

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

1-2 3-4 5-6 7-8 poorest poor medium wealthy

('000VND/household)

number of adult laborers wealth status

Figure 3. The distribution of agricultural harvest in Cham B.

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lages. Yet they could do nothing in practice toeffectively contest the claims made by those onthe allocated forest. Access to the forest, there-fore, was unregulated, giving all householdsfrom Diet and beyond similar rights to trees. 11

Nevertheless, just as in Cham B, the relativelyegalitarian distribution of endowments did notyield a similar distribution of entitlements. Thetechnology of timber extraction and the natureof institutions which regulated access to pro-ductive resources in Diet differentiated house-hold entitlements. The production of timberrequired capital inputs in the form of chainsaws and tractors. Loggers also required capitalto hire workers with specialized skills, who werereadily available but demanded a premiumwage. Furthermore, capital-rich households

also had a higher demand for trees as theyneeded those in their pepper plantations. Onlyhouseholds with significant capital could investin pepper, as the plantations required signifi-cant start-up investments and took at leastthree years until the first harvest. The abilityand interest of a household to engage in treecutting therefore depended on its access to cap-ital. Access to capital, in turn, was dependanton the generation of surplus within the house-hold, because access to other sources of capitaloutside the household was very limited.

Wealthier households therefore benefitedmore from the trees in the allocated forest thanpoorer ones (see Figure 4). The better-offhouseholds were the higher values of timberthey tended to extract from the forest. Forest-land allocation failed to enhance the tree enti-tlements of the poorer strata.

(c)The patterns of differentiation in entitlements

We now compare these insights from the qual-itative analyses with the results of the statisticalanalysis. The descriptive statistics highlight that

forestland allocation resulted in a highly skeweddistribution of entitlements among householdsin 2001 in the two villages (seeFigure 5). Somehouseholds harvested agricultural output worthup to six million VND (400 USD) from the allo-cated forest. At the same time, almost two-thirdsof all households did not generate any agricul-tural produce on the land. As for timber, morethan two-thirds of all households did not cutany trees in the allocated forest. The remainingone third extracted trees worth between 0.1and 16 million VND (71,100 USD). The

descriptive statistics, therefore, underline the in-sight from the qualitative analyses that therewere marked differences in forest entitlementsamong local households.

The results of Heckman two-stage estimationshow that whether or not households derivedany benefit from allocation in the form of agri-cultural harvest was associated with their pos-session of a forestland title and cultivation ofa field on the allocated forestland (see Table1). Whether or not they worked a field on theallocated land, in turn, was influenced by their

possession of a forestland title and the size oftheir existing upland fields outside the allocatedforest. The value of agricultural output was pos-itively and significantly influenced by the size ofcultivated land. In addition, villagers in Cham Bwere more likely to open up fields in the allo-cated forest than those in Diet. The size of the

Figure 4. The distribution of timber harvest in Diet.

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0

20

40

60

80

0 1-1,000 1,001-2,000

2,001-3,000

3,001-4,000

4,001-5,000

5,001-6,000

>6,000

%o

fhouseholdsample

'000 VND/household

Agricultural harvestTimber harvest

Figure 5. Distribution of agricultural and timber harvests.

Table 1. Summary of Heckman two-stage regression results

Estimation models

Agricultural harvest Agricultural land Timber harvest

Selection equation (first stage)

Household wealth 0.7305 0.5194 0.4258Political position 0.0147 0.1003 0.7380*

Possession of forestland title 1.5350*** 2.2588*** n/aNumber of adult laborers n/a 0.0185 n/aTotal number of laborers 0.0634 n/a n/aCustomary claims on forest 0.4623 0.3922 0.2437Cham B village (location) 0.1659 n/a 0.6221*

Upland outside devolved forest n/a 0.3724* n/aAgricultural land in devolved forest 1.5112*** n/a n/aTractor ownership n/a n/a 0.9097**

Constant 1.6623 1.4303*** 1.7925***

Lambda (expected error term) 0.3640 .5103** 1059.24

Main equation (second stage)

Household wealth 0.4266 0.9899*** 6938.92***

Political position 0.0772 0.1653 2411.51Possession of forestland title n/a n/a 376.60Number of adult laborers n/a 0.1701* 621.28Total number of laborers 0.0785 n/a n/aCustomary claims on forest n/a 0.2723 n/aCham B village (location) 0.7769*** 0.7048*** 3330.88Upland outside devolved forest n/a 0.1917 n/aAgricultural land in devolved forest 1.2597*** n/a n/aConstant 7.2929*** 1.0696*** 4336.71

R-squared 0.4955 0.5862 0.4587AdjustedR-squared 0.3791 0.4896 0.3175

Source:Nguyen (2005).Note: *, ** and *** represent significance levels of 10%, 5%, and 1%, respectively. n/a refers to variable estimatesthat are not appropriate for the model (seeAppendix).

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cultivated land, in turn, reflected the influenceof wealth, location, and to a lesser extent, labor.

The results of the regression analysis, there-fore, indicate that land entitlements dependedon multiple factors: wealth, the size of upland

fields outside the allocated forest, the posses-sion of a forestland title, labor capacity, andvillage location. They lend support to the effectsof labor and wealth on land entitlements high-lighted by the qualitative analysis, the influenceof labor also being implicit to the observed ef-fect of field sizes outside the allocated forest.The results also attest to the observed differencein the significance of land entitlements betweenthe two villages. The effect of forestland titles isunexpected, however, suggesting a larger influ-ence on households decisions to open up fields

in the allocated forestland than found in thequalitative analysis of entitlements in Cham.

Timber harvests again demonstrate the influ-ence of multiple factors in the Heckman estima-tion: political position, tractor ownership,village location, and wealth (see Table 1).Whether or not a household harvested any tim-ber from the allocated forest depended on theposition of a household member in the localstate administration, tractor ownership, andvillage location. The value of timber harvest,in contrast, was positively and significantly

influenced by household wealth only. Labordid not show any significant influence on tim-ber harvests. In this way the estimation resultslend support to the strong connection betweentree entitlements, on the one hand, and house-hold wealth (and indirectly tractor ownership)diagnosed in the qualitative analysis on theother hand. The effect of political position isunexpected but also relatively weak in compar-ison to wealth.

At this point, it is interesting to compare thedistribution of tree entitlements to the distribu-

tion of statutory rights. The distribution of for-estland titles among households was correlatedwith the households politicalposition, custom-ary rights, and labor capacity. 12 It was not cor-related with the variation in household wealthand possession of capital assets, such as a trac-tor. In contrast, household wealth and owner-ship of a tractor exerted significant influenceon the distribution of tree entitlements amonghouseholds. This simple comparison lends fur-ther strength to the results of the qualitativeanalyses that the processes differentiating enti-

tlements were relatively independent from thedistribution of statutory rights among house-holds.

In sum, the regression analysis supports theoverall finding of the qualitative analysis thatthere were different dynamics of differentiationat work. The dynamics differentiating land enti-tlements among households were different from

those differentiating tree entitlements. Landentitlements reflected the influence of factors,primarily labor, which were likely to offset thedifferentiating influence of wealth. Householdlabor and wealth emerged as the most significantinfluences on household entitlements because ofthe particular technology of upland agricultureand institutions regulating access to labor. Incontrast, timber entitlements showed the influ-ence of wealth, which was distributed unequallyamong households and had the potential to cre-ate enduring differences among households.

Household wealth was the key factor differenti-ating household tree entitlements because ofthe technology of timber extraction and theinstitutions regulating access to capital and la-bor. A corollary of these results is that the vari-ation in entitlements was different from thedistribution of statutory rights and endowmentsamong households. Forest entitlements de-pended on many factors beyond these two.

7. CONCLUSIONS

The insights from the two villages in Viet-nams Central Highlands carry importantimplications for devolution programs world-wide. The dynamics observed in Cham B andDiet highlight the workings of broader pro-cesses that differentiate the effects of devolutionon the livelihoods of the rural poor. The con-crete nature and effects of the processes, ofcourse, vary depending on the particular polit-ical economic setting in which they take place.For example, the more egalitarian distribution

of land entitlements observed in our cases isdue to the particular nature of local productionsystems and access relations to complementaryproductive resources in the two villages. Underother conditions, for example, where land prep-aration is undertaken with heavy machinery,devolution is unlikely to increase the land enti-tlements of the poor. Similarly, the long-termeffects of forestland allocation in the villagesmay be different from the ones observed in theshort term, for example if a labor market devel-ops in agriculture. Nevertheless, we believe that

the more general processes unearthed in ourforest entitlements analysis are of broader rele-vance to devolution programs.

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Our findings lend support to the claim thatdevolution possesses the potential to enhancethe contributions of forests to local livelihoods(Meinzen-Dick & Knox, 2001). The changes instatutory rights associated with devolution may

improve local peoples endowments. Thechanges in endowments, in turn, may bringabout entitlements for local people, as forestsprovide a variety of goods and services. Forestdevolution, therefore, holds the potential tobenefit local people by enhancing their endow-ments and entitlements. Where local people arepoor, devolution therefore may contribute topoverty alleviation.

At the same time, our results also indicatewhy forest devolution may not benefit the ruralpoor. Obviously, the design of devolution pro-

grams may restrict the statutory rights accordedto people and impose heavy responsibilitiesonto them (cf. Edmunds & Wollenberg, 2003;Ribot, 2004). But even in cases where programsprovide extensive rights to the poor devolutionmay not be beneficial to them. The reason is thatchanges in statutory rights do not automaticallytranslate into analogous changes in endow-ments and entitlements. The latter depend onthe political economic setting in which devolu-tion takes place. As a result, devolution gener-ates highly varied effects on the livelihoods of

the rural poor because differences in power rela-tions, production systems, and institutions con-dition their ability to translate statutory rightsinto endowments and entitlements.

For the same reason, devolution may not ben-efit all people in a particular locality equally.Just as political economic contexts influencethe nature of endowments and entitlementsgained by local people collectively, they alsoshape their distribution among them. Powerrelations, production systems, and institutionsregulating access to productive resources frame

the processes mapping endowments and entitle-ments onto local people. In addition, the pro-cesses mapping endowments may be differentfrom those mapping entitlements in the samelocality, reflecting the influence of different fac-tors. Political factors may have stronger effectson endowments than entitlements, while eco-nomic factors have more bearing on entitle-ments than endowments.

These findings suggest why forest devolutionmay not generate significant benefits to thepoorer strata of rural society. Devolution does

not create a level playing field for local people,even where its implementers distribute statutoryrights in an egalitarian manner. Instead, devolu-

tion happens in settings characterized by un-equal distributions of economic, political, andcultural resources. Local actors are differentlypositioned in pre-existing power relations andenjoy different access to productive resources,

reflecting the operation of a large range of insti-tutions located at the intersection of local-levelprocesses and larger economic and politicalforces. Devolution is only one among those lar-ger forces, one that seeks to modify access to onlyone productive resource: forest. In other words,devolution is embedded in broader processesof agrarian change (cf. Sikor, 2006). Actors abil-ities to take advantage of the new opportunitiesarising from devolution depend on their eco-nomic, political, and cultural resources. Thosealready disadvantaged, that is, the poorer strata,

are likely to find themselves in an unfavorableposition to benefit from devolution on equalterms. In the worst case, they may end upempty-handed even where devolution has cre-ated new forest entitlements for the local popula-tion as a whole. Alternatively, they may benefitfrom devolution in indirect ways only, capturingthe trickle-down effects of devolution.

Our findings carry direct implications for ef-forts to improve the contributions of forestdevolution to the livelihoods of the rural poor,in particular the poorest of the poor. There

are three levers of intervention available forenhancing these contributions. First, policy-makers can strengthen the statutory rights ac-corded to the rural poor in devolution lawsand regulations and take special precautionsto enhance the rights of the poorer strata. Sec-ond, devolution policy can seek to enhance theforest endowments of the poor by tilting localpower relations in favor of poor forest recipi-ents. For example, more effective enforcementof the statutory rights can strengthen the posi-tion of poor forest recipients against more pow-

erful actors. Third, devolution policy can enactadditional measures to increase the entitlementsderived by the rural poor from devolvedforests. Such measures would not be concerneddirectly with the forest, but they would seek toenhance the access of the rural poor toproductive resources that are necessary for thederivation of forest entitlements, such as smallsavings and credit schemes. The measureswould specifically enhance the entitlements ofthe poorer strata if they are designed to addresstheir specific needs. Of course, the latter two le-

vers of intervention go much beyond the cur-rent rights-based approach to devolution(cf. Johnson & Forsyth, 2002). Yet devolution



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policy may need to expand in scope if it aims toachieve an increase in the contributions of for-

ests to the livelihoods of the rural poor, in par-ticular the poorest of the poor.

NOTES

1. Another less significant modification is our lack ofattention to capabilities. We feel encouraged to do so bythe emphasis given to endowment and entitlementmapping in both Sen (1981) and Leach et al. (1999).At the same time, our analysis could easily be extendedto include attention to capabilities, thus making thetransition from benefits to well-being.

2. We also want to point out explicitly that forestentitlements may include benefits derived from agri-cultural activities in forests.

3. Fieldwork included attention to non-timber forestproducts and other entitlements. The analysis performedin this paper focuses on agricultural and timber harvestsonly because those constituted the most significantentitlements not only to the two villages but also allhouseholds.

4. We acknowledge the general problem of using recalldata. At the same time, we surmise that the use of recallmay be justifiable in our case. Local people reportedaverage harvests for the years 1999 and 2001. More

importantly, people themselves liked to compare thesituation before forestland allocation with their currentsituation, as allocation implied a significant change intheir lives.

5. For reasons of space, we discuss the regressionmodel in abbreviated form only and would like to referreaders toNguyen (2005, 2006)for detailed discussionsof the model.

6. The exact portion was not specified in the landcertificates and protection contracts. In our conversa-

tion, villagers and forest officers often mentioned a limitof 5%.

7. These numbers are adjusted for inflation by the useof the relevant sectoral GDP deflator and converted toUSDs on the basis of the mid-year exchange rate (1USD = 14,842 VND in 2001).

8. The increase was not statistically significant, asindicated by the t-test of difference (t value = 0.72,

PR P jtj = 0.47).

9. We investigate the dynamics of differentiationaround one type of entitlements in one village only forthe sake of clarity. The dynamics around land and treescan be found in both villages.

10. On average, wealthy households harvested smalleramounts on the allocated forestland because of tworeasons. First, the wealthy included a few migranthouseholds that did not engage in upland farming but

focused on services and off-farm employment. Second,some wealthy households including local governmentofficials refrained from clearing large fields because theyfeared negative repercussions.

11. This situation also precluded the theoretical possi-bility that forest recipients sold their tree rights to thirdparties.

12. The correlation coefficients are 0.32, 0.29, and 0.28,respectively, and all significant at a level of 1%.

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APPENDIX. THE HECKMANTWO-STAGE REGRESSION MODEL

Heckmans two-step estimation model iscommonly employed to eliminate the risk of aselection bias that results from self-selectionby individuals for either this or that group(Greene, 2000; Heckman, 1979). In our survey,many households reported zero entitlements,for example, no timber harvests in the devolvedforest. Heckmans model, therefore, allows usto deal with the potential sample selection bias.

Heckmans model involves estimation in twostages. The first stage uses a probit model toestimate the equation that determines the sam-

ple selection, for example, the choice of ahousehold to harvest timber or not. Based onthe regression results, the expected error term



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(the Inverse Mills Ratio or lambda) can be cal-culated. The second stage uses Ordinary LeastSquares (OLS) to estimate the equationdescribing the relationship between the quan-tity of a forest entitlement, such as the volume

of timber harvested by a household, andinfluencing factors. The expected error term(lambda) calculated in the first stage is includedin the regression as an independent variable. Inthis way the part of the error that is correlatedwith explanatory variables can be removed,producing consistent results in the estimation.

We use three estimation models for the enti-tlements (agricultural land, agricultural harvest,and timber harvest). The area of agriculturalland, the value of agricultural harvest and thevalue of timber harvest are the dependent vari-

ables of the OLS function in the second stage.Three dummies representing the probabilitiesof a household to have the three entitlements(=1 if the household has the entitlement and=0 otherwise) are the dependent variables ofthe probit functions in the first stage. Based onliterature review, a set of independent variablesincluding three types of household resources(wealth, labor, political position) and posses-sion of statutory rights are used in estimationmodels. In addition, a number of factors athousehold and village levels that were identified

during fieldwork to have potential influence onspecific entitlements are also included in therespective models.

To be more specific, the estimation model foragricultural land uses wealth, political position,possession of forestland title, number of adultlaborers, customary claims on forest, location,

and upland fields outside the devolved forestas independent variables. It includes attentionto existing fields outside the devolved forest be-cause these were expected to influence house-holds choices whether or not to open up new

fields on the devolved forest and, if so, theirdecisions about the area of the new field. Loca-tion is dropped from the first-stage equationand possession of forestland title from the sec-ond-stage equation to increase the overall sig-nificance of the model.

The estimation model for agricultural harvestuses wealth, political position, possession offorestland title, total number of laborers, cus-tomary claims on forest, location, and agricul-tural land in devolved forest as independentvariables. The variables include the area of

agricultural land cleared in the devolved forestbecause it was expected a key determinant ofharvest. Possession of title and customaryclaims are dropped from the second-stage equa-tion to improve the overall significance of themodel.

The estimation model for timber harvest useswealth, political position, possession of forest-land title, number of adult laborers, customaryclaims on forest, location, and tractor owner-ship as independent variables. The first-stageequation includes tractor ownership because

tractors are used to transport logs. Possessionof title and number of adult laborers are ex-cluded from the first-stage equation and cus-tomary claims from the second-stage equationto improve overall model significance.

See Nguyen (2005, 2006) for more detaileddiscussions of models and results.

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