Upland Transformations in Vietnam

4. “Forest Thieves”: State Resource Policies, Market Forces, Struggles over Livelihood and Meanings of Nature in a Northwestern Valley of Vietnam

 Upland Transformations in Vietnam 4 “Forest Thieves”: State Resource Policies, Market Forces, Struggles over Livelihood and Meanings of Nature in a Northwestern Valley of Vietnam Hoàng Cầm1 Introduction:“Forest Ranger: A dangerous Job” “Forest Ranger: A Dangerous Job” was the title of a talk show broadcast on the Vietnamese national television station VTV1 on 12 September 2005. It was part of the series Người đương thời [Contemporary People], in which celebrated Vietnamese people are invited to talk about their roles in solving ongoing issues in contemporary Vietnamese society. The special guests on this particular episode were two women: Lê Thị Hoà, the long-time head of the Forest Protection Unit (FPU) of Phù Yên District, Sơn La province; and Phạm Thị Mỵ, a Thái forest ranger working under the supervision of Hoà. The central focus of the show was issues relating to lâm tặc2 (forest thieves) operating in Phù Yên District, and the difficulties and dangers that Hoà and her fellow foresters encountered on the “battlefield” in fights against illegal loggers. According to both Hoà and Mỵ, over the last several years they had been attacked a number of times by “forest thieves” who would not hesitate to use whatever weapons they had to resist state foresters if their illegal encroachment was discovered and their timber was confiscated. However, when the moderator of the show asked whether they were scared, both said no, adding that they were willing to sacrifice their life to stop any illegal forest intrusion as they were foresters whose responsibility was to keep the forest in the area green.  “Forest Thiees”  Hoà and Mỵ did not exaggerate the contemporary “forest thieves” problem in the area in question. When I was conducting my field research in the region in 2003–4, this emerging social phenomenon became one of the greatest concerns of local authorities and national conservationists. It was also a daily topic of conversation among local villagers. Nor did Hòa and Mỵ overstate efforts made by local authorities to stop illegal encroachment on the forest. In fact, since early 2000 local authorities have mobilized (in addition to foresters such as Hòa and Mỵ) a large number of cadres, including police officers and staff members of many departments in the district bureaucratic system, to fight on the “battlefield”. However, what Hòa, Mỵ and the moderator of the show did not mention—or avoided discussing—was that regardless of efforts made by the district authorities to prevent forest thieves, thousands of trees in the forest under their control had still been cut down and transported to lowland markets every day for years. When I made a brief return visit to the valley in late September 2005, after the TV programme was broadcast, the overexploitation of timber in the forest was continuing unabated. This explains why the local people whom I interviewed during my visit reported that the forest area under Hòa and Mỵ’s control had almost disappeared. Forest thieves are not a new phenomenon; they are quite well known in the history of the valley. What is new and important in terms of the social and ecological transformation of the region is the multiplicity of social actors involved in this illegal activity and the aggressive acts of those whose activities are uncovered, especially when their timber is confiscated. How, then, can we understand this rising phenomenon and its new characteristics? It cannot be explained as the direct result of population growth, poverty or local people’s “ignorance” of conservation values, as official and conventional discourses tend to portray. The question becomes even more intriguing when the ethno-history of the contested forest and customary local values of the timber species therein are taken into consideration. Unlike other forests in the region, neither the forestland nor the contested timber species was a primary concern of the local people in their pursuit of everyday livelihoods before the 1990s. This was for two reasons: the forest was a sacred watershed for the local people in the valley, and the timber was not customarily used for house construction or for everyday firewood. What, then, are the new forces that motivate thousands of people, including local people and outsiders, to go to the forest? Based on data collected during field research undertaken in 2003–4, this paper argues that the recent emergence of forest thieves in the area [18...