Forestry Policy and Legitimacy: The Case of Forest Devolution in Vietnam

Introduction

Forestry reforms in developing countries since the 1990s have centred on the devolution of forest management (Dahal, 2003; Dahal and Adhikari, 2008; Pulhin and Inoue, 2008; Rosyadi et al., 2005). There are three reasons for this devolvement of power and authority from central to local actors. First, forestry state agencies have failed to control deforestation and forest degradation due to insufficient resources (Banerjee, 2000). Second, conventional command-and-control systems for forest management have created serious disputes between state agencies and forest-dependent communities (Dahal, 2003). Third, the global discourse on sustainable development in the 1990s also placed a great deal of pressure on national forestry to meet the requirements of economic, environmental and social sustainability that especially emphasised local participation in forest management (Edmunds and Wollenberg, 2001).

Given the goal of forest devolution to build sustainable forestry (Dahal, 2003; Rosyadi et al., 2005), current tensions between state agencies and local people over forest management have challenged this expectation (Edmunds and Wollenberg, 2001). This challenge raises the issue of local support for a well-intentioned policy, an issue that has not been well studied in the forest governance literature. This knowledge gap prevents a clear understanding of the success/failure of forest devolution, which tends to be a very complicated process engaging the interaction (Pulhin and Inoue, 2008). A clear understanding of the local support for forest devolution is therefore required to inform policy- and decision-makers in the revision and development of forestry policies.

Local support is also a critical issue for Vietnam’s forestry, which has a long history of state forest management. The government nationalised forest resources and applied centralised management in the north of Vietnam after the defeat of the French colonisers in 1954 and nationwide after the defeat of the American puppet southern regime in 1975 (Nguyen, 2001; Sikor and Apel, 1998). The Government Ordinance on Forest Protection (1972) stated: ‘forests are public goods to be managed by the state’ (Government of Vietnam, 1972: 1). This centralised forest management system placed the power of national decision-making and planning on forest exploitation and protection in the hands of the General Department of Forestry and then the Ministry of Forestry. At the provincial level, sub-departments of forestry oversaw state forestry enterprises in the implementation of central decisions and plans on forestry activities (Nguyen, 2001; Sikor and Apel, 1998). Local people, though called to participate in forest protection and planting, were only wage labourers for these enterprises and corporations (Sikor and Apel, 1998).

After the country’s reunification in 1975, forests were over-exploited ‘to meet the demands of the national economy in the period of economic recovery’ (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, 2001a). Although the forestry sector adopted the selective logging of timber with high economic values (Nguyen, 1982), the annual targets of wood exploitation in natural forests in provinces were based on wood demands and often exceeded the growth rate of natural forests (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, 2001a). Corruption also made it worse when the volume of logging in certain forest plots was often much higher than that of logging permits. In addition to the legal wood exploitation by state forest enterprises, illegal logging was pervasive due to the weak capacity of forestry agencies in forest protection. Another problem was deforestation for shifting cultivation in areas inhabited by ethnic minority groups, most of them forest dependent. Repeated (legal and illegal) wood exploitation degraded natural forests. Poor forests were then converted into agricultural lands (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, 2001a). The state forestry enterprises also carried out forest planting, which was unsuccessful with the low rates of established forest plantations, however (Dang et al., 2019).

Due to the lack of state resources in forest protection and rehabilitation under the control-and-demand systems of state forestry, deforestation and forest degradation took place at high speed in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1992, there were around 12,000 ha of barren land around the country due to a combination of causes: war and deforestation during the economic recovery after the war (Dang et al., 2019). In addition to forest loss, conflicts between local people and forestry agencies became serious across the country (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, 2001a). These problems called for forestry reforms in Vietnam in the early 1990s. The Doi Moi process drew on the discourse of socialisation to promote the participation of the whole society (state and non-state actors) in development activities (Ari, 1999), and the development of a multi-stakeholder market-oriented economy provided solutions for deforestation and forest degradation in Vietnam’s forestry reforms (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, 2001a). These renovations of Doi Moi in Vietnam’s society paved the way for the policy of Forest Land Allocation (FLA), which allowed the involvement of non-state actors in forestry. Since the early 1990s, forest lands in Vietnam have been allocated to individuals, households and organisations for forest rehabilitation and livelihood improvement.

The FLA policy aims to solve the problems of Vietnam’s state forestry. First, its main objective is to restore the country’s degraded forest resources. Second, the policy mobilises the participation of individuals and organisations (especially local people) in forestry to address the lack of state resources for forest protections and rehabilitation. This mobilisation pays great attention to conflicts between local people and forestry agencies over the use of forests by providing participants with rights and benefits over the forests they receive. In other words, the policy’s goals combine both forest rehabilitation and local livelihood improvement. With the new partnership between state and non-state actors in forestry, the policy paves the way for changing models and standards in forest protection and rehabilitation. Despite these good intentions, conflicts over allocated forest lands between state agencies and people are still taking place throughout the country (Dang et al., 2018). These conflicts raise the question of why, after decades of exclusion, this well-intentioned policy still faces the issue of low support from local people, who are able to participate in forestry activities and gain rights and benefits from the allocated forests. This question is thus worth examining to inform policy- and decision-makers on forest-related issues relating to the involvement of individuals and organisations in forestry.

Drawing from three case studies in Vietnam, this article examines the legitimacy of local support for the FLA policy by a framework based on the theoretical concept of legitimacy. The next section presents a brief literature review of the concept of legitimacy, which may have a broad meaning from power (something is legal) to public acceptance of what is considered appropriate. Based on this literature review, I formulate an analytical framework to evaluate the legitimacy of forest land allocation. I then describe an overview of the research method (data collection and data analysis) and the three cases (Tay Ninh, Dak Lak and Lao Cai). Thereafter, I analyse the research results in the three cases and then discuss the research findings and provide my conclusions.

Theoretical concept

To examine local support for the FLA policy in Vietnam, the article uses the theoretical concept of legitimacy, which has been a key word in the philosophical, social and political sciences for ‘24 centuries’ (Zelditch, 2001: 33). More recently, this concept has particularly attracted political scholars after Habermas (1975) raised concerns about the legitimacy crisis in Western developed countries in the 1970s. In general, the concept of legitimacy may narrowly refer to something that is legal under the law, or has a wider sense for something that is right, fair or just, or good for society.

As a multi-faceted concept, legitimacy covers normative, legal, sociological and cultural dimensions (Brinkerhoff, 2005). Scholars have defined legitimacy in a variety of ways. They distinguish between political and organisational legitimacy. Political legitimacy deals with ‘the relationship between societal acceptance of regimes and institutions and their ability to exercise power and authority effectively’, while organisational legitimacy deals with ‘the forces that impact upon organizational actors’ (Brinkerhoff, 2005: 1). Gaining political legitimacy is a crucial issue to political and governance regimes (Brinkerhoff, 2005: 1), while gaining organisational legitimacy is a crucial issue for long-term survival and continuity of organisations (Suchman, 1995).

For political legitimacy, Weber, for example, considers legitimacy as the belief in the rightfulness of a given rule/authority/power (Beetham, 1991). This rightfulness in some situations, however, may not be a necessary condition of rule/authority/power when people obey orders because of the enforcement/coercion (Grafstein, 1981). Legitimacy thus helps to provide ‘a more general support for a regime [or governance institution], which makes subjects willing to substitute the regime’s decisions for their own evaluation of a situation’ (Bodansky, 1999: 602).

As for organisational legitimacy, Suchman offers a broader definition: ‘Legitimacy is a generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions’ (Suchman, 1995: 575). Generally, Zimmerman and Zeitz (2002) consider organisational legitimacy as ‘a social judgment of acceptance, appropriateness, and desirability’. Organisational legitimacy thus is something ‘acceptable or legitimate among its relevant audiences’ (Bernstein and Cashore, 2007). These above definitions of organisational legitimacy have something in common. They talk about the judgement that something is right/appropriate and desirable. They also mention the obedience/acceptance from subordinates.

Looking for a working concept to evaluate the local support for the FLA policy in Vietnam, this article uses the definition of legitimacy put forward by Suchman (1995) for three reasons. First, the article focuses on organisational legitimacy through an examination of the legitimacy of the FLA, as seen in local support for the policy, which refers to the extent to which the relevant audiences (FLA participants) view the policy as being appropriate. It should be noted that given the involvement of non-state actors in societal development under Doi Moi, organisational legitimacy is increasingly appreciated in Vietnam both from the government and the public. Second, Suchman’s definition includes common elements of the concept of legitimacy, such as being desirable, proper and appropriate. Third, Suchman’s three forms of legitimacy, including moral, pragmatic and cognitive legitimacy, are relevant to the evaluation of FLA policy, which aims to restore forest resources for nature conservation (the policy is morally appropriate), bring benefits to people (the policy is pragmatically appropriate) and includes several changes in protocols in forest management (the policy is cognitively appropriate).

Pragmatic legitimacy relies on the calculations of self-interest by the foremost immediate audiences of an organisation. It is examined by assessing the values that audiences expect to achieve from organisational activities and also the incorporation of relevant audiences into the organisation’s policy-making structures. Moral legitimacy relies on the assessment of relevant audiences on whether organisational activities are ‘the right thing to do’. This kind of legitimacy is often measured by assessing the outcomes of the activities. Cognitive legitimacy relies on relevant audiences’ acceptance that organisational activities are necessary or inevitable. This kind of legitimacy is often assessed by ‘taken-for-grantedness’ and therefore, the comprehensiveness of organisational activities. Taken-for-grantedness refers to the inevitability and permanence of organisational activities and comprehensiveness associated with the plausibility and, therefore, the predictability of the organisation’s activities.

Suchman (1995) argues that conformity is the main strategy to obtain legitimacy. The strategy to realise practical legitimacy is demand-driven. This could be accomplished by meeting the desires of particular audiences or by giving them access to decision-making. The strategy for gaining moral legitimacy is to evolve to principled ideals. This conformity is achieved by producing appropriate outcomes and introducing new practices into legitimate institutions. The strategy to realise cognitive legitimacy is to adhere to established models and standards. This conformity is achieved by formalising and professionalising the activities of an organisation.

The operationalisation of the three forms of legitimacy into criteria for the evaluation of FLA legitimacy focused on the extent to which the relevant audiences, FLA participants, viewed the policy as being morally, pragmatically and cognitively appropriate. To do so, it took into account how the FLA policy and other regulations related to the implementation of this policy (the law on forest protection, decisions, forestry plans, etc.) responded to the key problems of Vietnam’s forestry. Concerning moral legitimacy, I explore what was considered ‘the right thing to do’ in the policy objectives and other related forestry regulations. Since FLA aimed at rehabilitating degraded forests by mobilising resources from individuals, households and organisations, ‘the right thing to do’ in this study concerns not only forests but also local participation. In terms of cognitive legitimacy, I attend to the conformity of forestry regulations to established models and standards in forest rehabilitation under the new partnership between state and non-state actors in forest land allocation. For practical legitimacy, I examine the conformity of the policy and other related regulations to local demand on the use of forest lands, particularly participants’ rights and benefits in forest rehabilitation. The framework for evaluating the FLA legitimacy is presented in Table 1.

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Table 1.

Analytical framework.

	Types of legitimacy	Criteria
1	Moral legitimacy (The right thing to do)	-FLA objectives and related forestry regulations (forest rehabilitation and local participation)
2	Cognitive legitimacy (Conformity to established models and standards)	- Models and standards for forest land allocation and forest rehabilitation
3	Pragmatic legitimacy (Conformity to demand of relevant audiences)	-FLA participants’ rights and benefits

Research method

Results and discussion

Vietnam’s forestry policies and legitimacy

Research findings highlighted the struggle of Vietnam’s forestry policies in forestry reforms to gain the three types of legitimacy through the FLA policy.

Moral legitimacy

The FLA policy aimed at restoring the country’s degraded forest resources was ‘the right thing to do’ after decades of prevailing deforestation and conflicts between forestry agencies and local people. The state narratives in the policy and other related regulations turned from forest exploitation for economic development into forest rehabilitation for environmental protection. Key regulations, such as the Government Ordinance of Forest Protection (1972), the Law of Forest Protection (1991), the Vietnam Forestry Development Plan (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, 2001b) and other regulations such as Decision 08 (Government of Vietnam, 2001a) and Decision 186 (Government of Vietnam, 2006), indicated a strong commitment to restoring degraded forests as ‘the right thing to do’ in terms of forestry reforms. This commitment could be seen in the two largest national programmes on forest rehabilitation: Programme 327 on re-greening barren hills (1992–1996) and Programme 661 on establishing 5 million ha of new forests (1997–2010). The Law of Forest Protection in 1991 (Vietnam’s National Assembly, 1991) said:

Forests are precious renewable resources of the country. They are an important part of the country’s ecological environment, provide great value to the national economy, and [are] closely linked to the life of the people and the survival of the nation. (Vietnam’s National Assembly, 1991)

Vietnam’s forestry regulations from the early 1990s thus reflected an effort by Vietnam to comply with key environmental protection ideas, especially with the development of special-use forests in the 2000s (Dang et al., 2012).

In addition to protecting forests, local participation has become a flashpoint in forestry regulations. Although the Government Ordinance of Forest Protection (1972) still acknowledged that forest resources were public goods, it stated: ‘Both the government and citizen are responsible for forest protection’ (Vietnam’s Councils of Ministers, 1972: 1). The Law of Forest Protection in 1991 clearly stated the involvement of local people in forestry was ‘the right thing to do’ to:

[e]ncourage organizations and individuals to participate in forest protection and development forests and exploitation. (Vietnam’s National Assembly, 1991: 1)

According to Article 5 of the Law, both state agencies and non-state organisations (economic organisations, social organisations, units of the people’s armed forces) and all citizens have a duty to protect and develop forests and to protect the ecological environment. Article 2 of the Law confirms:

The state manages forests and afforestation land in the whole country. Nevertheless, the state allocates forests and afforestation land to organizations and individuals – hereinafter referred to as forest owners – to protect, develop and sustainably use forests under national and provincial plans. (Vietnam’s National Assembly, 1991: 1)

The FLA policy was first carried out in Programme 327 (1992–1996) and then with Programme 661 (1997–2010). The ideals, including rehabilitating forest resources for protecting the environment, conserving historical and cultural relics, and improving local livelihoods, identified the ‘right thing to do’ that local people had to acknowledge. At the provincial level, the conformity of the FLA policy to ideals could be discerned from the main objectives of the Provincial Overviews on Forestry Development, the planning of three categories of forests. The names ‘People Forestry’ and ‘Social Forestry’ became popular in social media.

Cognitive legitimacy

The conformity of FLA to established models and standards in forest rehabilitation could be observed through the Law of Forest Protection (1991), which stipulated the designation of forestry lands into three categories of forests and the standardisation of forest management of these categories into different protocols. Article 1 (Chapter 1) of the Law defined forestry lands as land with forests and land without forests planned for forestry purposes (Vietnam’s National Assembly, 1991). This definition helps forestry agencies to establish its taken-for-grantedness for their task even on barren land (land without forest cover) designated for forest rehabilitation because only forestry activities could be carried out in the areas. The Law was facilitated by the discourse of socialisation, which advocated the involvement of the whole society (individuals, state and non-state organisations) in development activities, and the development of a multi-stakeholder market-oriented economy of Doi Moi. Article 2 (Chapter 1) stipulated the allocation of forest lands to individuals and organisations (both state and non-state). Chapter 4 of the Law further named these participants as forest owners, who gained different property rights and benefits over their allocated forest lands. It regulated the management and use of forest and forest land in three categories: protection forest, special-use forest and production forest. Protection forests are mainly used to protect water sources and land and mitigate natural disasters. Special-use forests are mainly used for conserving biodiversity and special landscapes such as historical, cultural and scenic sites. Special-use forests are classified into national parks, nature conservation forests, cultural and social forests, and forests for research. The boundary of the special-use forest must be determined by a system of signboards and solid landmarks. Production forests are mainly used for timber production and other forestry products. However, the Law still emphasised the key role of state actors in Vietnam’s forestry in the management of special-use and protection forests. Individuals and non-state organisations are mainly allocated production forest plantations over which recipients enjoy a complete bundle of property rights including access, withdrawal, management, exclusion and alienation rights (Dang et al., 2017).

Aside from forest designation, the standardisation of forest management into different protocols for the three forest categories in Decision 08 (Government of Vietnam, 2001a) and Decision 186 (Government of Vietnam, 2006) also granted the FLA policy some degree of taken-for-grantedness. Under these regulations, state enterprises at provinces were converted into management boards of protection/special-use forest/production forests. Forests in Tay Ninh were first allocated to:

6 FMBs of special use and protection forests The number of FMBs was then reduced to 4 in 1997;

FMBs who signed forest contracts with 1,984 individual HHs to plant forests, and with 37 groups of HHs to protect natural forests (Southern Institute of Forest Inventory and Planning, 2005).

In Dak Lak, most forest lands in the province have been allocated to:

15 FMBs of special-use and protection forests (284,254 ha);

14 forest companies (221,542 ha);

4,455 HHs, groups of households and communities 36,698 ha;

Organisations (25,328 ha).

In 2010, Lao Cai allocated most forest lands in the province to:

10 FMBs of special-use and protection forests (184,164 ha);

One forest company (20,248 ha);

46,989 HHs, groups of households and communities 142,486 ha;

Organisations (95.7 ha).

In addition to regulations on the designation of forestry lands and the classification and management of the three forest categories, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development also issued other regulations to standardise forest management. They included, among others, Decision 38/2005/QĐ-BNN dated 6 July 2007 on economic and technical norms for forest protection and planting (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, 2005), Circulation 70/2007/TT-BNN dated 1 August 2007 to instruct and organise the implementation of local conventions on forest protection and development in residential communities (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, 2009) and Circulation 2009/TT-BNNPTNT on instructing the criteria for identification and classification of forests (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, 2007).

Pragmatic legitimacy

In addition to conformity to moral legitimacy (forest rehabilitation is the right thing to do) and cognitive legitimacy (established models and standards in forest rehabilitation), forest policies under the reforms significantly highlighted their conformity to local demands on rights and benefits over the forest land allocated. This conformity aimed to address the disputes between forestry agencies and local people over the use of forests, which were a serious problem under state forestry. The rights and benefits of FLA participants were increasingly developed under forestry reforms. Article 3 of the Law on Forest Protection stated the following:

[o]rganizations and individuals planting forests on land allocated by the state without state funding, will own all forest products . . . The state protects the legal rights of forest owners. (Vietnam’s National Assembly, 1991)

Programme 327 in 1992 allowed participants (individual, households, organisations) to secure one-year contracts for forest protection and planting. Participants were also allowed to inter-crop agricultural crops on the forest lands and harvest the products. They also shared the harvest of forest products with the government. The rights and benefits of FLA participants were upgraded in Programme 661 (Government of Vietnam, 1998). During the implementation of the Programme, the government issued Decision 08 (Government of Vietnam, 2001a) and Decision 178 (Government of Vietnam, 2001b) regulating the management of natural special-use, protection and production forests, and elaborating the rights and benefits of FLA recipients. Local people could become forestry contractors or forest owners. Forestry contractors received short-term contracts (one to three years) or long-term contracts (up to 20 years). These contractors only had user rights and not the ownership of the forests. Forest owners received land-use certificates with property rights over forest products and agricultural products. FLA participants’ rights are presented in Table 2.

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Table 2.

Rights of FLA participants by Decision 08.

Rights	Production forests				Special-use and protection forests
	Forest owners		Forestry contractors		Forest owners		Forestry contractors
	FP	NF	FP	NP	FP	NP	FP	NP
Gain access to forests and forest lands	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Exclude other people from the land allocated	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Harvest agricultural and forest products on the land allocated	Yes	Limited	Agreed with owners	No	Limited	Limited	Limited	No
Make decisions on the management of forests and forest land allocated	Yes	Limited	No	No	Limited	Limited	Limited	No
Transfer the forest and forest land allocated	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No

FP: Forest plantations; NF: Natural forests.

Adapted from Dang et al. (2017).

Although FLA participants enjoyed different rights over the forests and forest lands allocated, they only have the user rights not ownership of these lands. In 2004, Article 31 of the revised Law on Forest Protection and Development highlighted a significant change when allowing FLA participants of forest plantations of production forests to have ownership over the forests (Vietnam’s National Assembly, 2004).

In sum, the FLA had strategies for gaining the three types of legitimacy. The following section shows that the policy success was shaped by how local people participating in forest rehabilitation viewed the policy as morally, pragmatically and cognitively appropriate.

Local response to the legitimacy of forest land allocation in Vietnam

Data from the household surveys in three provinces was analysed by two-step cluster analysis in SPSS to identify relatively homogeneous groups in the sampling. Using all variables for clustering, the analysis identifies four clusters. Although the four clusters seemed to represent the three provinces, each cluster was a group of FLA recipients who shared relatively similar characteristics from their FLA status, the presence of ethnic groups, the presence of native inhabitants and the allocated forest types. The ethnic Kinh group was dominant in clusters 1 and 4.

Cluster 1 was characterised by the Kinh group in Tay Ninh province, which gained access to forest lands through FLA for households. Most members have long-term forestry contracts for forest plantations.

Cluster 2 was characterised by a mix between the Kinh and minority groups in Dak Lak. A total of 55% of members had short-term forestry contracts for natural forests. Members secured access to forest lands through both FLA for communities and FLA for households.

Cluster 3 was a special group characterised by ethnic groups in Lao Cai, who mainly gained access to forest lands through annual contracts for forest protection between FMBs and local communities. Due to the weak flow of information from FMBs to recipients and the low participatory process of FLA, most members of this group did not know their FLA status. Nevertheless, they still received payments from FMBs (through the head of the villages). They also harvested non-timber forest products (NTFPs) from the forests allocated and inter-crop food crops on the lands. Customary laws in the communities acknowledged these practices.

Cluster 4 was also a special group in Lao Cai and 100% of its members were Kinh who received land use certificates (LUC) for production forest plantations.

In terms of moral legitimacy, 92% of 288 respondents from the questionnaire survey in the three provinces acknowledged that forest rehabilitation was ‘the right thing to do’ for environmental protection. This acknowledgement was especially high for Tay Ninh contractors (cluster 1) and forest owners in Lao Cai (cluster 4). However, most of them thought of the environmental benefits of forests simply in terms of the functions of the tree canopy to protect the soil, to prevent flood and to mitigate storm and strong wind. Only a small number of participants (clusters 2 and 3) mentioned wildlife and medicinal plants. Most of these respondents were forest-dependent minority groups whose livelihood activities were closely related to these forest products. This evidence showed that participants’ views of the importance of forests were mainly derived from their experience in making a living from the forests. While forest dependent minority groups who harvested more diverse products from forests could appreciate its intrinsic values, participants from Tay Ninh where agriculture was profitable only appreciated the importance of forest land for agricultural inter-cropping. Participants in cluster 3 (Lao Cai) also saw the importance of the tree canopy because they were cultivating cardamom in natural forests. Most respondents did not appreciate the biodiversity and other environmental services provided by the forests. For them, the intrinsic values of forests were very vague. Most of them had not heard about these values, and those who had heard of them were confused about how to access and benefit from them. This lack of knowledge on the intrinsic values of forests showed that local people participating in the policy did not completely share the full meaning of its moral legitimacy.

Nearly 80% of respondents agreed that local people should be involved in forest planting and protection. This criterion was highly appreciated by participants from minority groups in Dak Lak (cluster 2) and Lao Cai (cluster 3). Interestingly, these participants were not forest owners but one-year contractors. In addition, the legacy of a strong state forestry service had an impact on FLA moral legitimacy. Semi-structured interviews with FLA recipients showed that some respondents still considered forests as common resources and forest protection as the responsibility of the state, in general, and forestry departments, in particular. The view that saw the tree canopy as the most important exposed a tension between the ‘right thing to do’ for the environment and the ‘right thing to do’ for local livelihoods. The tree canopy surely helps protect the soil from erosion by rain and wind, but the forests provide more value than that in terms of ecosystems and biodiversity. Not seeing the forest as a set of diverse values beneath the canopy explained why nearly 46% of respondents from Tay Ninh argued that poor forests should be converted into rubber plantations because the rubber trees also had a big canopy to protect the soil.

In terms of cognitive legitimacy, forest designation seemed to be effective because more than 80% of participants said they knew the areas of forest land. However, only 57% said they participated in the FLA policy just because they were cultivating on forest lands. Responding to the established models of three forest categories, only 52% of participants knew about the category of their allocated forests as well as their rights and benefits. In particular, 18.4% of participants (mostly from cluster 4) did not know about their rights and benefits. They were also confused about the economic and technical norms for forest planting and protection. Although local forest agencies claimed that they followed the bottom-up procedures in FLA planning and decision-making, not much change took place to facilitate the effective involvement of local people. Because forestry agencies still dominated decision-making, forestry contractors only implemented the contracts formulated by forestry agencies.

Only 36% of respondents said they participated in local meetings during the implementation of the policy and 47% were satisfied with the procedures. The limited flow of information from forestry agencies to local people seemed to undermine the comprehensibility of these protocols, which were mainly formulated by forest agencies. In all, most respondents in the 4 clusters couldn’t identify all three categories of forest, having only heard the name of either protection or special-use or production forests. Some knew the names of all three forest categories but could not tell the difference between them. Surprisingly, even many forestry contractors could not properly identify the category of their allocated forests. They also could not understand much about why their allocated forests were placed into one category and not another. The policy’s strategy for established models and standards thus did not go hand in hand with the necessary education for target audiences (local people in forested areas) about these protocols to support the implementation of the FLA policy. Such ignorance from FLA recipients, particularly the ones from ethnic minority groups, compromised the expected performance of new models and standards in forest rehabilitation.

As far as pragmatic legitimacy was concerned, 100% of respondents gained access to forest land, and 57% were able to harvest from the forest land allocated. Some 82% said they did gain benefits from FLA through payments, wood and NTFPs and crops planted on the lands. In Tay Ninh, long-term forestry contractors (cluster 1) had the withdrawal rights over the auxiliary trees and agricultural products on their contracted forestry land(s). In Lao Cai, members of cluster 4 had LUCs, so they were forest owners of plantations with decision-making rights on the selection of trees and their harvest. Though most members of cluster 3 were on short-term contracts, they did not know their status. By participating in the protection of the special-use forests of the national park, they had the right to inter-crop cardamom under the forest canopy. In Dak Lak, most members of cluster 2 were forest contractors for natural forest protection. They complained about the enforcement of their exclusion rights and the lack of management rights. They simply considered they were only wage labour with one-year contracts:

The payment for forest protection is very low. I think it is not much higher than the wage labour I got from the forest enterprises before. I do not have any right to deter someone to cut some trees in the forests. Also, I have to ask the FMB’s permission for doing everything in the forests. (Transcript of an interview with an FLA forestry contractor in Krongbong district, Dak Lak province)

In general, FLA conformity to the demands of local people seemed to focus only on their short-term demands while neglecting their long-term expectations (user rights). Unclear benefit-sharing of the main trees and the uncertainty of forest tenure rights still worry forest contractors in Tay Ninh. One contractor said:

I am not sure about if I am going to have the land allocated in the coming years. Also, now I can only harvest the auxiliary trees. I am afraid that the FMB would withdraw the land allocated when the main trees closed their canopies. (Transcript of an interview with an FLA forestry contractor in Tan Thanh village, Tay Ninh province)

Interviews with FMB staff, local authorities and participants showed that most respondents, particularly in Tay Ninh, complained about the design of forest plantations (the tree density, tree species, space for agriculture and type of agricultural crops). One contractor in Tay Ninh said: ‘Why [did] the FMB ask me to plant many trees on my plot. When these trees grow, I do not have enough space for my cassava’. Local forest rangers claimed that some contractors illegally damaged the main trees to gain room for their agricultural crops. In Dak Lak, contractors of minority groups (cluster 2) still cultivated food crops in special-use forests, despite being prohibited. In Lao Cai, contractors of minority groups (cluster 3) asked to grow cardamom in the natural special-use forest, which was prohibited by Decision 08.

A summary of local responses to FLA strategies to gain legitimacy is presented in Table 3.

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Table 3.

Local responses to forestry policies’ strategies for gaining legitimacy.

	Types of legitimacy	Total	Tay Ninh	Dak Lak	Lao Cai
			Cluster 1(N = 96)	Cluster 2(N = 96)	Cluster 3(N = 66)	Cluster 4(N = 30)
1.	Moral legitimacy
1.1	-The importance of forests	92	98	85	94	100
1.2	-The importance of local participation in forestry	79	74	92	64	87
2	Pragmatic legitimacy
2.1	Rights
	-Access	100	100	100	100	100
	-Harvest	57	66	32	100	91
2.2	Benefits	82	72	79	95	91
	-Wood harvest	54	34	32	1	41
	-NTFPs harvest	57	66	9	100	91
	-Payment	72	72	79	95	0
	-Inter-cropping	26	23	31	35	0
3	Cognitive legitimacy
3.1	Taken-for-grantedness
	-Know the boundary of forest land	87	93	100	55	100
	-Observe regulations	37	35	41	48	7
3.2	Established models
	-Forest categories	52	42	50	73	47
	-Deliberation	36	19	50	44	27
	-Deliberation satisfaction	47	45	50	46	46

Conclusion

The case study reveals the multi-faceted character of the legitimacy of the FLA policy and its strategic efforts to gain legitimacy, facilitated by the discourse of socialisation of Doi Moi. After decades of forest exploitation for economic development under a command-and-control system, the policy and other relevant regulations highlight vague ideals of environmental protection. It also advocated local involvement for shared responsibilities and resource mobilisation in forest rehabilitation after decades of exclusion. Local people’s perception of the intrinsic value of forests for biodiversity conservation and other environmental services was extremely low, leading to trade-offs between environmental protection and local livelihoods. The policy’s conformity to the short-term gain of local people through agricultural inter-cropping was not conducive for forest protection and rehabilitation. It also created greater tensions between local people and forestry agencies over the use of forest lands. Although some degree of taken-for-grantedness of forest protection and rehabilitation could be observed, participants expressed a poor knowledge of established models and standards.

This case study provides some empirical observations regarding the interplay between different forms of legitimacy in a forest devolution policy, and this is still not well investigated in forest governance literature. Although pragmatic legitimacy has been considered the least durable form of legitimacy (Suchman, 1995), research findings show that in the absence of a ‘deep’ moral and cognitive legitimacy, pragmatic legitimacy could become durable and play a determining role in shaping the trade-off between local involvement and forest rehabilitation in Vietnam. To address this trade-off, greater attention should be paid to improving strategies for gaining moral and cognitive legitimacy through more thorough environmental education for local people on the intrinsic values of forests and through improving the flow of information from forestry agencies to FLA recipients on the established models and standards in forest rehabilitation.