A case study of Dao Women and Bavi National Park in Vietnam

1.Context and Background

Land Regimes in Viet Nam had undergone many changes over the century. Before 1954, feudal system was controlling the land resources. Once the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam constituted government introduced land revolution. Many big landlords had to share their land with tillers and therefore, peasant movement started.

In 1959, the government of Viet Nam introduced Co-operative system and agriculture was given more importance. With the environmental conservation consciousness the ‘Indigenous Ethnic Minority Community’ (IEMC), the Dao community, brought down from hill forestlands (1000 mts. ASL) to down hill lands (250 mts ASL). As a resettlement, IEMC were given 1000 ha. of forestlands and 8 ha. of agricultural land for their livelihoods within Bavi mountainous area in Bavi district, Northern Highlands.

With the increased environmental conservation consciousness and due to international pressures, all of a sudden, in 1990, the government declared the area as National Park for conservation and tourism purpose through top-down policy. About 427 ha. of lands, in which IEMC had access, was taken away (300 ha. for the park and 127 ha. for tourism). This means about 167 households livelihood source stolen away by the government for conservation and tourism purpose.

This was done without any respect and accounting the bottom up participatory policy planning and decision-making process. It lacks the recognition of Indigenous Rights, dependency of local people on the land resources for their livelihoods and alternative arrangements. This lead to cutting the traditional customary rights of the Indigenous Community, especially Dao ethnic minority, who are living in the park since generations.

The impacts of this on IEMC are that the conservation policy denies the resource access rights of indigenous community, which threaten their whole existence by causing lack of food, fuelwood,…further causing health problems, tensions, desperation, and hopelessness, leading to poverty and vulnerability, then lack of education for children, especially girls in their family. These cause break down of family life, culture and values, and also traditional institutions and social life (Intra-family, inter-family, inter-community, and generational relations - young and olds and commune system). The erosion of indigenous knowledge system, especially regarding herbal plants use for health management.

These changes above led to suppression of pre-natal and antenatal mothers, which many times may given shocks to newborn babies and further causing social vulnerability. IEMC people became very low confident and may feel always isolation, they may even loose self-protection defense mechanism. They become cheap labourers with dominant Vietnamese Kinh. In addition, if wage rate is very low they borrow loan to feed family members and survive. May not be able to repay loan. This leads to indebtedness among IEMC and they fall in further conflicts and crisis.

One the other hand, the government is supporting the tourism and allowing private companies to come in and take over the beautiful landscape, which was belonging to the IEMC. This caused conflict between Tourist Company and IEMC people. Because they felt their livelihood security and herbal knowledge are being stolen by tourist companies for sale and companies’ own benefit. The conflict between youth of IEMC and the companies is continuing in the area.

Moreover, this entire process created conflict within IEMC for the reason that only young beautiful girl and handsome boys get opportunities to work in the company and earn income. Others were denied. Nevertheless, the prostitution in the area increased. The HIV/AIDS also have entered the area by increasing health problems. Young male and female of Dao community become victims to the killing HIV/AIDS. Before tourism enters in to the area, young population of Dao was hard workers learning occupational skills from parents, where as now their traditional occupation is undermined, neglected, and abandoned by some.

In this context and background, more in-depth study of the problem is to be done in order to derive options for solutions and facilitate negotiated conflict and sustainable livelihoods management along with meeting conservation goal. Therefore, this study uses action research approach.

This problem has to be examined from different context such as;

Influence of Neo-liberalization policy – global and national.
Government as a stakeholder.
Decentralization and participatory process as recipe for equity and sustainability.

Moreover, it raises some of the basic questions for the action research (see point no.3).

2.Objectives

The action research will lead to derive deeper understanding in to the complexity of dependency of Indigenous Ethnic Minority Community on Resources in National Park and their conflicting interests;

The action research then finding out the solution options through participatory approaches between the stakeholders (Indigenous Ethnic Minority Community, Academics, NGOs, GOs, Donors and other stakeholders);

The action research will offer an opportunity for sharing and exchanging situation regarding Indigenous Women’s rights and their access to resources and livelihoods along with their traditional practices.

3. Research Questions

What were the conditions and livelihood strategies of the IEMC before 1990? Was it more or less for everybody?
Were all households affected to the same extent and in the same ways?
Marketing – changing trends and access by IEMC – how it was before? How it is now? And how it might be? What are the alternatives opportunities available?
Change in gender relations and women status – how was it earlier? How it is now? And how it might be in future? – Special focus to be given to women with livelihood strategy, social relations, and power. How did gender relations and division of labour in livelihoods strategies (agricultural production, handicrafts, medicinal plants use and marketing, etc.) influence the livelihood condition of the Dao IEMC?
Conflicts between conservation and. tourism vs. peoples’ livelihoods and How to balance between needs, interest and concern of different stakeholders – IEMC, state, private sector, etcetera?
What are the different solution options available within the policy framework, governance, and management? Examine the policy constraints and the changes required – conservation policy, tourism policy, education policy, development policy, gender policy, agricultural policy, etc.
How one could use the multi-level research for multi-level policy advocacy?

4. Broad Impact Indicators

Livelihoods and living condition: land, access to forest products, involvement in production, access to market, etc.
Culture, traditions and institutions
Employment and occupation
Gender and social relations: men and women, young and elder, intra-family, inter-family, inter-community
Health: Human and Animal
Environment: Biodiversity – plants, wildlife, aquatic – conservation, pollution – land, water, and air – management.
Participation in decision making – local, national and global.

5. Potential stakeholders at various levels: Micro to Meso

Local: Individual Households (wife, husband, young, elder, unmarried, separated, widowed man and women)
Communal: CBOs, local government, private firms and companies
District: District government, NGOs, Private companies CBOsNetwork
Province: Government, NGOsNetwork, CBOsNetwork, Research Institutions
National: Government, NGOsNetwork, CBOsNetwork, RIsNetwork
International: Donors, Inter-governmental organizations like UNO, UNEP, etc.

6. Methodology

Phase-1

Preliminary visit the area and institutions concerned for stakeholders identification.
Individual, household, and group interviews – selective and purposive – qualitative information.
Conducting survey for quantitative information.
Collection of literature and review of literatures.
Preparing draft study report

Phase-2

Stakeholders’ consultative process and analysis through PRA and other methods.
Evolving management strategies through participatory process.
Sharing the outputs with stakeholders.
Refining the final draft.

Phase-3

Planning for implementation.
Capacity building of stakeholders.
Appropriate Institutional promotion and strengthening.
Action and reflection cycle – accommodating the learning, refining the plan and further action.
Use the research outputs for policy advocacy at various levels – local, district, province, national and international.

7. Outputs

Short-term outputs:

Policy analysis and people friendly conservation strategy as a tool to influence government policy;
Participatory livelihood planning and strategies are developed and shared among different stakeholders.
First level outcomes of the study document produced for advocacy purpose.

Middle term outputs:

Effective, non-destructive, and sustainable conservation and development strategies are put in operation.
The lessons of the exercise taken to other parts of the country and other countries CHESH/TEW working and intend to collaborate or network.

Long-term outputs:

Empowerment of IEMC, especially women.
Gender sensitive ownership by IEMC on resources, conservation, and livelihoods management in sustainable way.

8. Geographical Area

This action research would be carried out first in the Bavi national park area with Dao IEMC. Later the study will spread to other areas (with separate comparative action research proposal) such as;

Central Vietnam: Vu Quang Conservation area with Laos Community;
Central Highlands: Doc Don National Park with mixed between 8 different Indigenous Communities: EDE, GIARAI, BANA, MONONG, LAO, KHOME, DAO, THAI;
One National Park and one tiger reserve in India: Mixed Indigenous Communities in Western Ghats of Karnataka, India;

9. Timeframe

The first case study of Bavi would take about 8 to 12 months for completing the phase 1 and 2. Phase 3 would take long-time, say 3 to 5 years. Based on the progress made in the Bavi with regard to phase 1 and 2, the experiences gained and lessons learnt could be applied to other areas stated above.

References:

Anon, (2002), Lessons of The Dao and Bavi (draft), The Centre for Human Ecology Studies of Highlands (CHESH), Hanoi, Viet Nam.
Lan Anh, Pham thi & Nguyen Minh Phuong, (2001), A Draft Report on Intensive Training Course on Research Methodology, Regional Center for Social Science and Sustainable Development, Chiang Mai University, Viet Nam.

Tran thi Lanh (March 2003)