Contribution of Forest Resources to Rural Livelihood of Local Community in Protected Areas of Vietnam -- Case of Thuong Tien Nature Reserve, Kim Boi District, Hoa Binh Province

Tropentag, September 17-19, 2013, Stuttgart-Hohenheim "Agricultural Development Within the Rural-Urban Continuum"

Posted: 12 Oct 2013

See all articles by Huong Do

Huong Do

Silviculture Faculty, Vietnam Forestry University

Ngai Nguyen

Vietnam Administration of Forestry, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development

Duc Le

Dresden University of Technology - Institute of International Forestry and Forest Products

Date Written: May 1, 2013

Abstract

The limited knowledge on livelihood and importance of forest to residents in Protected Areas is the reason making forest management practice has not achieved yet conservation and development objectives, sometimes it even causes conflicts between the Nature Reserve and local communities.

The research on contribution of forest resources to rural livelihood of the community living inside or around Thuong Tien Nature Reserve, Kim Boi district, Hoa Binh province follows 2 criteria: distance to forest (from household’s house to forest) and household economics types. The applied methods in the research are analysis of secondary data and survey using Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools: household survey (one hundred sixteen households), group discussion and expert interview.

The research result shows that there are three approaches to livelihood of residents living inside or around the Nature Reserve: (1) People develop agricultural production including wet rice cultivation and livestock; (2) People find sources of livelihood in other areas or trading; (3) People collect products from forest and forest land. The household survey result reflects that the current major livelihood source in research area is forest resources exploitation, namely timber, fuel-wood, bamboo and medical herbs collection as well as raising animals in forest. The analysis of contribution of forest resources to total income of those households relates distance to forest and household economics types through finding out the correlative equation between total income of surveyed households and incomes from forest and forest land. The statistics result shows that the correlation between total income of surveyed households and incomes from forest and forest land is from relatively strong to very strong with coefficient R2 ranges from 0.375 to 0.787, this means from 37.5% to 78.7% of total income fluctuation of households are explained by income from forest and forest land. The research findings also reveals that the nearer people live to forest the more important forest resources are to total income, especially poor households.

Recommendation for solution packages is given with the aim of helping the Nature Reserve and local communities to promote the implementation of both conservation and livelihood development objectives in the research area.

Keywords: Forest resource, Livelihood, Local community, Protected Area, Nature Reserve, Vietnam

Suggested Citation

Do, Huong and Nguyen, Ngai and Le, Duc, Contribution of Forest Resources to Rural Livelihood of Local Community in Protected Areas of Vietnam -- Case of Thuong Tien Nature Reserve, Kim Boi District, Hoa Binh Province (May 1, 2013). Tropentag, September 17-19, 2013, Stuttgart-Hohenheim "Agricultural Development Within the Rural-Urban Continuum", Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2339152

Huong Do (Contact Author)

Silviculture Faculty, Vietnam Forestry University ( email )

Hanoi
Vietnam

Ngai Nguyen

Vietnam Administration of Forestry, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development ( email )

Vietnam

Duc Le

Dresden University of Technology - Institute of International Forestry and Forest Products ( email )

Pienner Str. 7
Tharandt, 01737
Germany
+49 352 338-31855 (Phone)
+49 352 338-31820 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.forst.tu-dresden.de/Inter/

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