When biodiversity conservation needs inclusive land-use planning
Hiếu Commune, Kon Plong district, Vietnam
The Central Highlands of Vietnam still hold many surprises. Biodiversity surveys in this region revealed new populations of rare and endangered wildlife, including two critically endangered primates: the grey-shanked douc and the yellow-cheeked gibbon.
Despite the rising awareness of the uniqueness of this area, the local wildlife remains critically endangered and threatened by deforestation and habitat fragmentation, due to infrastructure development and agricultural expansion.
“With its high biodiversity level, Kon Plong deserves to be considered as one of Vietnam’s most valuable conservation forests.”
Nhân Dân news
This area is also one of the poorest regions in the country. Finding economic development opportunities consistent with the maintenance of ecosystem services is becoming a pressing issue in parts of the district. In recent years, Fauna and Flora International (FFI) Vietnam, a conservation organisation, brought attention to the threatened primates. FFI promotes an inclusive land-use planning approach to address the dual challenge of improving local income and conserving the natural habitat that sustains the unique biodiversity.
Decisive land-use choices in Hiếu Commune
Hiêu Commune in Kon Plong District is where FFI has been engaging in local discussions on future land use and investments. It is also where the Land-use Planner tool was piloted for that purpose.
In this commune of 2 984 inhabitants, 13.6% of the population lives at or below the poverty line. Their livelihood includes cropping systems based on cassava, rice, vegetables, maize, tree fruit, coffee, and medicinal plants (cultivated, not wild harvested). Stated economic development goals for Kon Plong District focus on agriculture and tourism, with a greater emphasis on agriculture for Hiếu Commune.
Map 1. Current land use in Hiếu Commune
Map 2. Conservation and land ownership in Hiếu Commune
At the northern end of the Commune, some 1 742 hectares (8.5% of the total land area in Hiếu Commune) are designated as watershed protection forests. At the southern end, preliminary analysis by FFI identified an area of approximately 4 800 hectares as having particularly high value for biodiversity conservation. The Kon Plong Forest Company owns that area, together with another 10 172 hectares.
Participatory planning for Hiếu Commune
Vietnam’s new planning law and its implementing decree require provincial land-use and socioeconomic development plans to be inclusive, and science and fact-based. Commune and village-level feedback is an important part of the process.
Land-use planning is both a top-down and bottom-up process. While strategy and direction comes in the form of 10-year national strategies and provincial plans that are transcribed into district-level master plans, details are to be developed from all the villages’ data and opinions. The process includes the following steps:
- The Commune People’s Committee begins by hosting a meeting to orient residents to the land-use planning process.
- Villages then hold meetings to outline and discuss land use and related needs, based on district-level master plan.
- Representatives from the villages then report back to the Commune People’s Committee.
- Data and opinions gathered from all villages are then synthesised at the commune level and submitted to the District People’s Committee.
It is in the context of this dialogue between villages, the commune, and the district, that FFI facilitated a series of initial conversations to explore how various land-use and land management choices could affect future development potential.
Assessing alternative land-use options
In the weeks leading up to the October 2020 field visit and workshop, the FFI team used the Land-use Planner tool to model various possible land-use changes. The models result in different socioeconomic outcomes in terms of food security, employment and income, and environmental protection. First, the team developed a baseline or business-as-usual scenario, in which change is driven by the continuation of recent trends in population growth. Then, it developed alternative scenarios dubbed ‘Livelihood Support’ and ‘Conservation,’ based on initial conversations with local stakeholders.
Under the Livelihood Support scenario, Hiếu Commune would see increases in cassava cultivation, the establishment and some repurposing of greenhouses to grow fruits, vegetables, and possibly medicinal plants. In this scenario, fruit orchards and processing and sale of such products as mango, longan and avocado would begin or increase.
The Conservation scenario included the establishment of new protected areas designed to enhance biodiversity conservation. These would add to the existing watershed protection forest area already managed for water quality and other ecosystem services. The additional land protection would mean less agricultural production in specific areas. The high conservation value areas occur in the southern portion of the Commune, and the reduction in farm activity would happen there as well.
Focus group and workshop discussions in Hiếu Commune revealed a clear interest from participants to be better informed about the causal relationships between land-use decisions and economic development. Representatives from the District People’s Committee expressed an interest in using this kind of resource in their planning process.
From its last trip, the FFI team reported: ‘Our experience with the Hiếu Commune process shows that the Land-use Planner has the potential to be a very engaging means of helping local citizens and decision makers think more creatively and expansively about future economic development and environmental quality enhancing scenarios. This, ultimately, can lead to functional land-use plans against which development proposals, land reallocation, and public and private investment decisions can be compared and, depending on the comparison, either encouraged or discouraged.’
For more information
Josh Kempinski
FFI Country Director, Vietnam Programme
