Land Use Policy 81 (2019) 582–593

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Land Use Policy

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol

Rethinking ‘Success’: The politics of payment for forest ecosystem services in T

Vietnam
⁎
Phuc Toa, , Wolfram Dresslerb
a
Crawford School of Public Policy, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia
b
School of Geography, The University of Melbourne, Australia

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In 2010, the Vietnamese government implemented a national payment for ecosystem services (PES) policy. In
PES promoting the policy, the government has conveyed PES as a successful policy that has achieved multiple ob-
Policy jectives, including forest protection and poverty alleviation. Contrary to these claims, however, critical studies of
Discourse analysis PES in Vietnam have found a weak relationship between PES and forest protection, the continuing dominance,
State
rather than retreat, of the state in forest management, and no clear evidence that PES assists the poor in the near-
Vietnam
universal manner purported. Using a discourse analysis approach, this paper examines why and how PES policy
was formulated and implemented in Vietnam. We explore the influence of key networked individuals involved in
the production and negotiation of PES policy, as well as the socio-political and institutional context that in-
fluences PES policy design and implementation. The paper details how social relationships between state offi-
cials, donors and technical experts were built and mobilized through the process of PES policy design and
implementation to achieve specific state objectives. In this context, we argue that government discourse on the
‘success’ of PES has served as an effective vehicle to deflect attention from the weakness of the forestry sector, to
generate new funding for the sector’s survival in the face of enduring budget shortages, and to expand state
power in relation to forest resources. The ‘success’ of PES helps sustain the poor management and corrupt
practices of state forest entities and eliminates villagers’ opportunities to benefit from the forest, hence sus-
taining poverty in the uplands.

1. Introduction
In 2008, the Vietnamese government piloted a watershed-based
payment for ecosystem services (PES) mechanism in Lam Dong and Son
La –– two upland provinces that are home to a large number of poor
ethnic minority communities. Since then, a number of major aid donors
and international NGOs have worked with and through national
agencies to trial ‘market-based’ mechanisms to achieve forest protec-
tion, reflecting the transnational character of such schemes. The pilot
project partner was an international NGO (hereafter ‘the INGO’) with a
mandate of delivering ‘innovative’, ‘market-based’ social, agricultural
and environmental programs1. Under the pilot scheme, the government
required hydropower and water supply companies to pay fees for using
environmental services (e.g. water supply, prevention of soil erosion)
provided by forest areas. The payments were then distributed to state
organizations such as state forest companies (SFC) and management
boards (MBs) of protected areas who control and manage forest terri-
tories. Eligible PES payment recipients included those upland house-
holds who received forestlands from the state under devolution in the
1990s–2000s, and the households who received the forests contracted
to them by SFCs and MBs under the government’s forest protection
program. The PES pilot helped raise about US$8 million in revenue.
Dogged by allegations of chronic mismanagement, this apparent ‘win -
win’ outcome boosted the image and finances of the country’s cash-
strapped forestry sector (To et al., 2015). During the first half of 2010,
while the PES pilot was still being trialled, the government decided to
roll out the PES model nationwide (see Prime Minister’s Decree 99,
April 2010).2
Since then, the Vietnamese government has upheld PES as a great
success. According to the Deputy Prime Minister, PES ‘effectively con-
tributed to poverty alleviation and hunger reduction’ and is ‘the best policy
for forest use and management.’ (Thiennhien.net, 2010). The Ministry of

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: Phuc.to@anu.au.edu (P. To), wolfram.dressler@unimelb.edu.au (W. Dressler).
1
The names of the NGO and our respondents are treated anonymously in this paper.
2
The Decree made it clear that end users of environmental services such as electricity and water users were the ones who had to pay for the services.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.11.010
Received 13 February 2018; Received in revised form 7 November 2018; Accepted 7 November 2018
0264-8377/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
P. To, W. Dressler
Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) which oversees PES im-
plementation claims that PES has ‘facilitated and established a market-
based mechanism’, with PES being ‘an economic transaction between the
buyers using environmental services on the one hand and sellers (forest
users) supplying environmental services on the other hand.’ (VNFF, 2016).
Data from MARD seems to substantiate such success, showing that PES
implementation has generated about US$50 million in revenue per
year, providing 22 percent of the annual budget needed for the op-
eration of the forestry sector. These data also suggest that PES revenue
has contributed to the protection of 5.8 million ha of forest and bene-
fited approximately 500,000 upland households, many of whom are
poor ethnic minorities (VNFF, 2016). Stories highlighting the successful
achievement of the ‘multiple objectives’ of PES have also been circu-
lated by state-run newspapers and television networks, with PES being
called a ‘breakthrough policy … addressing multiple problems’ (Dang Cong
San Newspaper, 2017).3 The government’s heavily publicised achieve-
ments have been picked up by major international media outlets such as
the BBC, the New York Times and Al Jazeera.4 Donor partners have
joined forces to align with this celebratory discourse, praising the
Vietnamese PES policy. The manager of the INGO, for example, touted
Vietnam’s PES policy as ‘a regionally significant milestone’ and ‘the first of
its kind in Southeast Asia.’ (the INGO report 2011, p. 7), describing
Vietnam ‘as a center of excellence, from which other countries in the region
could learn about implementing PES mechanisms.’ (To et al., 2015, p. 29).
Critical analysis of such celebratory PES discourse reveals a much
less sanguine scenario, however. Numerous studies have shown that
while PES relies on state mediation of revenue exchange (as opposed to
a ‘pure’ market-based mechanism dependent on clear rules, prices and
standards), the market logic persists in the context of little evidence
bearing on any positive links between PES revenue, forest protection
and local livelihood improvements (McAfee, 2012). A now burgeoning
literature shows that neoliberal conservation involving market-based
instruments such as PES or REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforesta-
tion and Forest Degradation) draws on monetary valuations and cost-
benefit analysis that, when articulating with political economies across
scale, can unleash varied unintended impacts and outcomes (Corson,
2010; McAfee, 2012; Roth and Dressler, 2012; Fletcher and Büscher,
2017). These include issues of non-additionality, leakages, scientific
uncertainty, impermanence, sustained corruption, inappropriate re-
source valuation, and intergenerational inequity (McAfee, 2012;
Corbera et al., 2009; To et al., 2012; Roth and Dressler, 2012). While far
from the rational market instrument it was originally conceived to be
(Wunder, 2007), PES instruments, just like all institutions, operate in
complex political economies and environments that influence their
designs and implementation (Corbera et al., 2009; Milne and Adams,
2012). In many cases, for example, the adoption of these instruments
leads to the strengthening of state control through re-regulation and
recentralization (Phelps et al., 2010; Corbera et al., 2009; Corson,
2010).
3
There are media reports that highlight shortfalls and challenges in policy,
but the number of these reports are much less compared to those featuring the
positive elements of the PES policy, implementation and impacts. Indeed, a
quick Google search shows that the first 20 local (Vietnamese) media reports
featuring PES policy and implementation (1 report in 2016, 3 reports in 2017
and the remaining 16 reports in 2018), 18 reports (90 percent) celebrate PES
results in terms of improvement of local livelihoods, increased forest cover and
enrichment of biodiversity. Only two reports (10 percent) briefly discuss land
tenure challenges. In the study on REDD+ politics in media in Vietnam, Pham
et al. (2017), however, note that though state actors dominate REDD+ media,
the number of media reports featuring challenges of REDD+ have been in-
creasing.
4
See, for example, the reports by BBC at: http://www.bbc.com/vietnamese/
lg/vietnam/2009/07/090701_usaid_pes_seminar.shtml, by The New York
Times at: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/07/business/international/in-
vietnam-paying-communities-to-preserve-the-forests.html?mcubz=1
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Land Use Policy 81 (2019) 582–593
As we show, the studies of PES policy results in Vietnam have also
found that while the scale of illegal logging in areas with PES activities
may reduce, this is not because of PES per se as often claimed by the
government but due to intervening socio-economic factors (e.g., the
long distance and physical difficulty for loggers to access logging areas;
low selling price of certain timbers (Tran et al., 2016)). These studies
have found that claims that forest cover is increasing is not because of
PES, but because the economic return from villagers’ tree plantations
due to state-run forest devolution and protection schemes motivate
them to invest in planting trees (Tran et al., 2016; Sikor, 2012; To et al.,
2015). In this context, then, we show how the Vietnamese state rear-
ticulates PES in line with previous government-funded forest protection
programs in ways that support policy formulation, financial redis-
tribution and broader productions of success. We show that contrary to
state ‘PES boosterism’ - aided by the donor community - the policy has
ultimately served as a means to subsidise state forest entities and to
consolidate their political power rather than address the underlying
causes of deforestation and reduce poverty among beneficiary com-
munities. Indeed, despite international NGO pressure and a well-funded
PES program, state forestry and governance continues to be char-
acterized by weak capacity and finances, land conflicts and corruption
(To et al., 2015; McElwee, 2016).
Adopting a discourse analysis and framing approach to PES policy
making, this paper looks at why and how Vietnam’s PES policy was
produced and implemented in Vietnam. We explore the influence of key
networked individuals involved in the production and negotiation of
PES policy, as well as the socio-political and institutional context that
influences PES design and implementation. We focus particularly on the
discourses constructed by the forest administration – the agency re-
sponsible for the design and implementation of PES policy – and donors
supporting PES. We examine the knowledge and power of key actors
that were instrumental in the development of the PES policy, and the
socio-political processes through which the production of PES ideas,
practices and notions of ‘universal success’ emerged. Our study re-
sponds to a call for in-depth empirical research on institutional pro-
cesses that mediate the provision of ecosystem services (Corbera et al.,
2009) and on the implications for local communities (Milne and Adams,
2012). Building on past studies that highlight the dominant role of the
state in PES implementation in Vietnam (e.g. McElwee et al., 2014;
Pham et al., 2013; Tradel et al., 2016) and beyond (e.g. Shapiro, 2013;
Okereke, 2006; Ingalls, 2017), we examine how social relationships
between senior state officials, technical experts and donors were built
and mobilized through the process of PES policy design and im-
plementation to achieve specific state objectives. We describe how the
emergence of PES in Vietnam was closely related to the personal re-
lationships between donor, technical experts, and senior officials who
leveraged a form of power not accessible to villagers. Our study shows
that government discourses on ‘PES success’ have served to deflect at-
tention from numerous ongoing implementation problems, the weak-
ness of the state-led forestry sector and, crucially, to facilitate openings
for consolidation of state power and finances in relation to forest re-
sources. Validating PES through widespread discourses of success has
not only reinforced the status quo (e.g., market-orientation) of such
schemes (e.g. Okereke, 2006; Ingalls, 2017), but also facilitated the
expansion of political power for state forest entities. This comes at the
expense of local communities, whose share of PES benefits is con-
strained by lack of participation in forest management and land tenure
arrangements that continue to favour state forestry agencies.
2. Methodology and approach
This paper draws on findings from primary data collected from
2008–2015. From 2008–2010, the lead author was asked by the
Vietnamese government to review all forestry payment schemes in
Vietnam to provide insights to the government in designing forest
protection activities. During this period, the lead author had the
P. To, W. Dressler
opportunity to attend several meetings with and witness exchanges
between policymakers, experts and donors on the design and im-
plementation of the PES pilot policy and Decree 99 concerning national
PES implementation. During 2010–2012, while working as an in-
dependent researcher, the lead author visited two PES pilot provinces to
learn about the implementation. While in the field, he undertook 25
semi-structured and open-ended interviews with provincial, district and
commune-level officials involved in PES implementation to learn about
their activities and viewpoints. Insights from the interviews were
documented in field notes. In addition, the lead author interviewed 16
villagers in the two provinces. These villagers were randomly selected
in several villages located in the watershed with PES payment schemes.
They included both PES revenue recipients and non-recipients. Insights
from villagers’ interviews allow us to understand local livelihood ac-
tivities and the role of PES payments in local livelihoods. During
2013–2014, the lead author paid three visits to Kon Tum province in
the Central Highlands where he conducted open-ended interviews with
two officials from Kon Plong (state-owned) Forest Company and six
provincial officials, including two from the Provincial Forest Protection
and Development Fund involved in PES implementation. Interviews
with these officials informed our understanding about the pros and cons
of PES implementation at the local level, as well as their viewpoints of
PES.
Insights into recent developments in PES implementation were ob-
tained from the lead author’s informal exchanges with experts who
have been heavily involving in PES policy development since 2008.
Data was also obtained through exchanges with some NGO workers
who have been following PES implementation processes at the local
level. Both state agencies and NGOs were aware of the lead author’s
academic and consultancy position. Data from these interviews allows
us to understand the politics of PES design at the national level and
implementation at the local level.
Discourse analysis primarily focused on the text and language used
in technical reports by key PES implementing agencies, MARD and
VNFF (administered by MARD’s Administration of Forestry (VNFOR-
EST))5, and from the donor agencies supporting policy design and im-
plementation (e.g. the INGO’s technical reports). PES stories generated
by state-run media also served as a source of secondary data. In
Vietnam, there are other government agencies mandated to work on
PES.6 These agencies may have different discourses on PES. However,
our paper focuses primarily on the discourses by the forest agencies and
not by others. Finally, as the political context surrounding PES is dy-
namic and fast changing, our paper documents a key period in its im-
plementation that was subject to considerable state ‘political booster-
ism’—a point in time that merits critical analysis in its own right.
3. The discourse and politics of framing
Gregory et al. (2009, p. 167) define discourse as ‘a specific series of
representations and practices through which meanings are produced,
identities constituted, social relations established, and political and
ethical outcomes are made more or less possible’. When applied to the
study of environment or development policies, discourse analysis aims
to ‘understand why a particular understanding of the environmental
problem at some point gains dominance and is seen as authoritative,
while other understandings are discredited (Gregory et al., 2009, p. 44).
It tries to ‘makes sense of the regularities and variations in what is being
said (or written)’ and to understand ‘the social background and social
5 [their] growing coherence on those who argue about them or oppose
The reports are available on VNFF website at: http://vnff.vn/truyen-thong/
tai-lieu. There are other technical reports by VNFF and provincial Funds that
may highlight some constraints in implementation but these reports are not
available to public and we do not have access to these reports.
6
For example, the Department of Biodiversity Conservation is mandated to
work on a PES policy for biodiversity conservation.
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Land Use Policy 81 (2019) 582–593
effects of specific modes of talking’ (Gregory et al., 2009).
Gregory et al. (2009) suggest further that actors engaged in policy-
making nurture credibility, acceptability and trust in the process of
implementation. Credibility is required to make other actors believe in
the subject-positioning that a given discourse implies for them in a
broader frame; acceptability requires that a particular position appears
attractive or necessary; trust refers to the fact that doubt might be
suppressed or inherent uncertainties might be taken for granted if ac-
tors manage to secure the confidence of others in the context of in-
vesting in discursive orientations where ideas and representations are
stabilised (Gregory et al., 2009, p. 56).
We link the above to the ‘discursive frames’ that emerge to further
delineate and make sense of the assumptions, beliefs and actions as-
sociated with PES discourse to interpret how they may influence
Vietnamese state policy and practice. Framing is the discursive process
by which individuals (and groups) come to locate, identify and label
certain themes, issues and situations they regularly encounter and
privilege (Goffman, 1974, p. 21). It involves ‘principles of selection,
emphasis and presentation composed of certain … [ideas and beliefs]
about what exists, what happens, and what matters in policy inter-
ventions (Gitlin, 1980, p. 6). Depending on how actors invest in them to
influence policy design and outcomes, frames may gain coherence and
political traction over time.
In policy decision-making, actors who govern will make ‘framing
judgments’ in deciding what to write and do in line with certain
‘schemata’ that structure meanings and beliefs. Key transnational and
national decision makers will draw on and invest in frames through text
and language that contains (and produces) key words, stock phrases,
information and images that ‘provide thematically reinforcing clusters
of facts [for policy] judgments’ (Entman, 1993, p.52). These frames
may influence and reveal actor thinking and conclusions. The ‘stock of
frames’ used most consistently can reflect dominant policy discourses
that are more or less representative of influential actors’ key motives,
objectives and interests (Entman, 1993). Socio-political frames thus
structure issues, change policy, legitimize perspectives, and mobilize
people toward an ideal (Dewulf et al., 2009).
In this context, ‘policy-making is not just a matter of finding ac-
ceptable solutions for preconceived problems. It is also the way in
which dominant actors in societies regulate latent social conflicts’
through investing and conveying certain types of concepts and solutions
as pre-eminent, universal and often, unquestionable (Hajer, 1995, p.2).
In Mosse’s (2005, p.14) seminal aid-ethnography in India, for example,
he found that ‘policy primarily functions to mobilise and maintain
political support, that is, to legitimate rather than orientate practice.’
Accordingly, policies can be viewed as ‘models’ that ‘reveal, conceal,
explain, justify, label and give meaning. It is through them that chaotic
practices are stabilised, made coherent and validated for a project’s
various publics. . . that progress is measured and success proclaimed;
and the gap between policy and practice is constantly negotiated away’
(Mosse, 2005., p.18). According to Mosse (Mosse, 2005, p.8), ‘devel-
opment projects work to maintain themselves as coherent policy ideas
or systems of representations’; development outcomes are thus ‘not
driven by policy but by the exigencies of organisations and the need to
maintain relationships.’ Similarly, Li (2007) draws on discourse ana-
lysis to examine the politics of the ‘will to improve’ in Indonesia and
how these are closely linked to political discourses and practices that
legitimise government practices and claims of success, rather than im-
prove local livelihoods. In this sense, ‘the success of policy ideas or
project design is not inherent (not given at the outset) but arises from
key actors’ ‘ability to continue recruiting support and so impose. . .
them’ (Latour, cited in Mosse, 2005, p.8). Indeed, the ability of actors to
maintain the traction of central ideas at the expense of others depends
on them reinvesting in the foregrounding of certain moral framings of
the environment to ultimately “forge common realities” across diverse
actors in ways that support project objectives (Lewis and Mosse, 2006,
P. To, W. Dressler
p. 16). These processes reflect acts of translation (Latour, 1984),
wherein actors rely on the “skilful use of rhetoric” to create common
interests, investments and objectives in certain governance solutions
and ultimately achieve concrete, albeit, temporary material outcomes.
We build on this earlier body of work to critically examine the way
in which PES ideas and practices have been produced in Vietnam and
how notions of its success have been inflated through state rhetoric,
social networks and the relationships that bind them. We analyse the
development and implementation of PES policy, the motives and in-
terests of those framing PES ideas and practices, and the character and
meaning of frames in the production of success. In particular, we focus
on how the framing of PES by state forestry officials and donors backing
the policy and the adoption of a national PES policy has served the
financial interests of the state forestry administration in furthering its
dominance over forest resources.7 Before doing this, Section 4 provides
an overview of forest governance in Vietnam.
4. Forest governance in Vietnam
Forest governance in Vietnam has been characterized by dominant
state control and policy shifts driven by changing government emphasis
and interests in forest resources, and contested land tenure systems (see
McElwee, 2016; To et al., 2015). After gaining independence in 1954,
the Vietnamese government declared all forest in the North state
property. Forest in the South was nationalized after 1975 when the war
ended with the North and the South regions uniting. To control the
country’s forest areas, the government established a system of State
Forest Enterprises (SFEs, now known as State Forest Companies, or
SFCs) which were overseen by the then Ministry of Forestry (now
MARD) or the provincial or district People’s Committee. The SFCs
played an overlapping role – to undertake timber exploitation in forest
areas designated for timber harvest (so-called production forest), and to
protect forest demarcated for conservation (protection forest). In the
1970s and 1980s, SFCs were primarily focused on industrial timber
exploitation and less on forest protection (Nguyen, 2001; McElwee,
2016). Timber was not only important as raw material for rebuilding
the country after the war, but also for generating state revenue through
timber exports (McElwee, 2016). In principle, nationalization of the
forest erased villagers’ traditional claims to the forest; in practice, law
enforcement was lax, which left villagers relatively free to continue
swidden cultivation, collect timber for housing and non-timber forest
products for their own uses (Nguyen, 2001; To et al., 2015). Heavy
logging on the part of the SFCs, particularly in the second half of the
1980s, cleared almost all commercial timber from the country’s forest
areas (McElwee, 2016), to the point that many SFCs were no longer
financially viable (Nguyen, 2001; To et al., 2015). At the same time, the
termination of development aid from the former Soviet Union severely
impeded the country’s economic development. By the end of the 1980s,
Vietnam’s forestry sector was in crisis due to the combined impact of
state budget deficits and high levels of deforestation and forest de-
gradation (Sikor, 1998; Sowerwine, 2004).
To remedy this, the government worked in line with the interna-
tional conservation-driven donor community (Zingerli, 2005) to shift its
policy emphasis away from timber extraction to forest protection and
conservation. Specifically, it introduced a logging ban on natural forest
and re-designated large tracts of forest areas from production to pro-
tection. In total, about 2 million ha of production forest became
7 communities managed the remaining 28 percent), most of which is poor
There are competing claims and interests in PES among government agen-
cies (e.g. between Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and Ministry
of Environmental and Natural Resources) (e.g. Tradel et al., 2016). There are
different forestry discourses within the government and between government
and other agencies (e.g. see Dang et al. 2012). However, our paper focuses
primarily on the PES discourse constructed by forestry administration and do-
nors backing the policy.
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Land Use Policy 81 (2019) 582–593
protected forest earmarked for biodiversity conservation and watershed
protection. The SFCs that had previously managed forest areas for
logging purposes were turned into forest Management Boards (MBs)
with a new forest protection mandate. Together with these policy
changes, the government implemented major nationwide reforestation
programs such as Program 327 (1993–1998) and Program 661
(1999–2010). These programs aimed to plant trees in ‘degradation
forest’ and to ‘protect critical watershed areas’8 and were operated
through SFCs and the newly-established MBs. Funds from the 327 and
661 programs were critical for the operation of SFCs and MBs, many of
which would not otherwise exist (Sikor, 1998; To et al., 2015). Under
the two programs, SFCs and MBs signed forest plantation and protec-
tion contracts with local households. In return, the households received
forest plantation and protection fees.
Several studies have uncovered various problems associated with
the 327 and 661 programs. These include local elite capture, corruption
and abuse of funds by SFCs and MBs and no evidence of a relationship
between payment for forest protection and an increase in either forest
cover or quality (To, 2007; Clement and Amezaga, 2009; Nguyen,
2006). Despite these findings, these programs were to become critical
forerunners of the subsequent PES scheme, and shared some key
characteristics with it — primarily villagers receiving payments for
environmental services. Indeed, the implementation of PES largely
overlaid and duplicated many of the processes that were put in place
during the life of these two programs, as we discuss below.
The government’s shift in forest policy to one emphasizing forest
protection had also materialized through the process of forestland de-
volution. Following the issuance of Decree 02 in 1996, the government
dismantled a number of SFCs that had become unviable and transferred
the land previously managed by these SFCs to local households. In
principle, the land given to households was to be used for forest pro-
duction purposes (e.g., commercial tree planting) and not for growing
cash crops such as coffee or cassava, which are considered agricultural
production activities. The government’s intention was that villagers
would improve forest cover and strengthen their livelihoods (Clement
and Amezaga, 2009; Castella et al., 2006). By 2014, approximately 1.4
million households had received a total of 3.4 million ha of forestland
(To et al., 2015).
Despite the government’s focus on reforestation and protection,
including the devolution process, outstanding problems in the forestry
sector have persisted. The 143 remaining SFCs at present still manage a
large area of forestland — approximately 1.6 million ha (MARD, 2015)
— while many households, especially in the country’s Central High-
lands, remain landless (To et al., 2015). Many SFCs have continued to
perform poorly because they lack the capacity to manage the large
areas of forest allocated to them. Some SFCs have engaged in corrupt
practices, such as secretly renting out sections of forestland (To et al.,
2015). There have been numerous cases of SFCs failing to pay staff
salaries for several months or even years (To and Tran, 2013). Land
conflicts have been rampant in the uplands, as villagers have en-
croached forestland managed by SFCs in order to grow crops (To et al.,
2015) or because of local authorities giving land to private companies
for the development of agribusiness projects that come at a cost to local
communities (To and Tran, 2013). Despite the government’s use of
punitive measures to stamp out this practice, defiant villagers have
justified such encroachment on the basis of their traditional claims to
the forestlands (To and Tran, 2013). As Table 1 shows, by the end of
2016, most forest areas (72 percent in total) was still under state control
(MBs, SFCs, Commune People’s Committee; local households and
and degraded forest.
Amidst this complexity, with support from international donors
8
McElwee (2016) notes that these terms are politically constructed, to serve
the purpose of the government.
P. To, W. Dressler
Table 1
Distribution of forest area by forest user groups.
Source: MARD’s Decision 1819, dated 16 May 2017.
Forest user group Forest area (ha)
State’s Management Boards of protection and special use forest 5,028,697
Forest State Company 1,609,755
Household and community 4,058,155
Commune People’s Committee 3,118,952
Private company 266,443
Military organization 187,263
Others 108,416
keen to trial market-based environmental programs, the government
piloted a major national level PES scheme, with MARD's forestry ad-
ministration at the helm. To date, the government has promoted its PES
policy as successfully meeting the dual objectives of forest protection
and local livelihood improvement. In official statements and publicity
materials, the government and project partners have portrayed the PES
policy as having been well implemented, seamlessly connecting en-
vironmental service buyers, such as hydropower plants and water
companies, with environmental service providers including the upland
poor. Socio-political and cultural issues such as tenure conflicts
(Clement and Amezaga, 2009; McElwee et al., 2014, McElwee, 2016, To
et al., 2012), local elite capture (e.g. UNREDD and MARD, 2010; To
et al., 2015) and various other constraints in implementation were
made invisible in this process. The sections below critically engage with
the discourse and framings of the national ‘PES as success’ over time.
5. Frame judgement: Evolution of PES policy and production of
success
PES has a long, entangled history, rooted in global conservation
policies that have become increasingly neoliberal in ideal and intent
(Fletcher and Büscher, 2017). However, since its initial conception and
definition (Wunder, 2005, 2007), the transactional, market-oriented
nature of PES has transpired somewhat differently, emerging instead as
a hybrid state-market driven payment scheme (or subsidy) for poor
farmers to ‘enhance’ ecosystem services (Corbera et al., 2009; Shapiro,
2013; McElwee, 2012; Wunder, 2007). At least initially, donor and civil
society actors advocated that such PES schemes entertain certain gov-
ernance provisions (e.g., good governance and poverty reduction), only
to have them effectively ‘scrubbed out’ or side-lined by state ideology
and motives (see Dressler et al., 2015).
PES is a relatively recent policy development in Vietnam. It is
heavily influenced by donors and international NGOs. PES was first
mentioned in government policy in 2006 as part of the country’s
Forestry Development Strategy until 2020. The strategy highlighted
that PES was a potential mechanism for forest protection and biodi-
versity conservation, as well as revenue generation. In the strategy, the
government estimated that the implementation of PES would generate
US$900 million in revenue for the forestry sector by 2015, growing to
US$2 billion by 2020 (Vietnam Forestry Development Strategy, 2007).
Thus, PES was seen as a promising mechanism to fund forest manage-
ment in Vietnam’s ailing forestry sector.
To facilitate the development of PES, the government worked var-
ious social relationships — with strong financial and technical support
from the INGO — to pilot the PES policy in Lam Dong (Central
Highlands) and Son La (Northwest) in 2008. The PES piloting process
began with delineating bureaucratic and technical discourses, including
problem identification, knowledge production, and interventions
(McElwee, 2016; Muradian et al., 2010; Mosse, 2005; Ferguson, 1990;
Li, 2007). The normative framing of the PES implementation began
early by identifying three types of ‘environmental services’ in the pilot
scheme: water regulation, soil conservation and landscape aesthetics.
The policy identified so-called ‘service buyers’, primarily hydropower
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plants and water supply companies, and established the payment level
for environmental services (set at 20 Vietnam Dong (VND)
($US0.00088) per kilowatt-hour for commercial hydropower produc-
tion businesses, and 40 VND ($US0.00175) per cubic meter (m3) for
clean-water production businesses). ‘Service providers’ identified by the
policy included SFCs, MBs, local households and communities who had
already been allocated forestland, as well as those with existing forest
protection contracts with SFCs and MBs.
Laying the foundation for gaining subsequent support and legiti-
macy, the PES pilot produced encouraging results for the government in
terms of revenue generation. To manage this revenue, the government
decided to establish a provincial fund in each province, and a national
fund within MARD. The national fund, known as the Vietnam Fund for
Forests (VNFF), would sign the trustee contracts and receive payments
from service buyers that use environmental services from watershed
areas that cross the boundaries of two provinces. After retaining 0.5
percent of the revenue collected, the VNFF would then transfer the
remaining revenue to each provincial fund, based on the area of the
watershed in each province. Representatives from provincial funds
could only sign contracts and collect PES fees from buyers that used
services provided by a watershed falling entirely within the province.
The provincial fund was allowed to keep 10 percent of the total PES
revenue for their administration costs, and the remaining revenue
would be distributed to the service providers.
In Lam Dong province, which has 532,000 ha of forest (MARD,
2015)9 and a population of 1.27 million people (General Statistics
Office, 2015), most of the forestland is held by 23 different SFCs and
MBs. As a result, most of the PES revenue was channelled to these or-
ganizations. Approximately 9000 households living in these forest areas
received PES revenue through forest protection sub-contracts signed
with the SFCs and MBs. In contrast, in Son La, which has a population of
1.19 million people (General Statistics Office, 2015), most of the
634,000 ha of forestland had already been allocated to a total of 52,000
households prior to the PES pilot (MARD, 2015). Here, the provincial
fund signed forest protection contracts with all 52,000 households that
had received land and were eligible to participate and receive PES
revenue.
The new revenue generated through the PES pilot scheme was seen
as an important future fund-raising vehicle for MARD, particularly the
Vietnam Administration of Forestry (VNFOREST), which oversaw the
overall pilot process. Senior policymakers involved in the formulation
and implementation of the PES pilot described it as a ‘breakthrough’ (đột
phá), and a ‘first’ in the forestry sector’s history (lần đầu tiên trong lịch sử
ngành lâm nghiệp), in the sense that the country had never had a policy
that could generate ‘a new source of funding outside of the state budget’.10
Stories about PES in Vietnam were featured in national and interna-
tional media outlets, touting Vietnam as the first country in Southeast
Asia to successfully adopt a PES mechanism — the discursive basis for
reproducing the broader credibility and acceptability of national PES
practices.
Several months before the pilot phase ended in 2010, the govern-
ment decided to roll out PES schemes nationwide, through the issuance
and implementation of Decree 99 in 2010. Under Decree 99, PES
benefit distribution was framed as a technical rather than a socio-po-
litical process. The decree specified four factors known as the ‘K coef-
ficient’ to be included in the calculation of PES payment levels. These
were (i) forest status, divided into rich, medium, poor; (ii) forest type,
based on the state’s system of classification of special use, protection,
9
MARD’s Decision 1315 dated 6 August 2015, reporting on the country’s
forest situation.
10
These phrases and descriptions were frequently used in government PES
meetings and in presentations on PES made by policymakers and experts in-
volved in the design and implementation of Decision 380, and Decree 99 in
later stage.
P. To, W. Dressler
and production forest; (iii) forest origin, which includes natural forest
and plantation; and (iv) difficulty in protecting and patrolling the
forest, determined by factors such as remoteness and the difficulty of
the terrain. At the state and INGO level, PES policymakers argued that
the different levels of payment were key elements that made the PES
scheme different from previous government forest plantation and pro-
tection programs. This, then, was the basis for producing the knowledge
and power of senior policymakers and technical experts we describe
below.
In a recent report, MARD claimed that more than 355,000 local
households had received PES payments, with each receiving about 1.8
million VND/year (US$86) on average (MARD, 2015). It further
claimed that PES revenue had helped to protect four million ha of
forest, or 39 percent of the country’s existing forest, and that PES has
also helped reduce forest law violation cases by 19 percent, forest da-
mage cases by 63 percent, and fire cases by 83 percent (MARD, 2015).
MARD also noted that the PES policy ‘has established a new, stable, and
sustainable financial mechanism for forest protection, contributed to income
and livelihood improvement of the local forest dwellers’ (MARD, 2015, p.1).
Emphasising and repeating words such as ‘new’, ‘stable’ and ‘sustainable’,
the government thus began a path of leveraging success from this policy
to sustain its implementation more broadly across localities in the
country. In an interview published online by a local environmental
NGO, the country’s Deputy Prime Ministre, responsible for the forestry
sector remarked: “PES is a highly socialized policy… effectively contributes
to poverty alleviation and hunger reduction… the best policy in forest use
and development’ (Thiennhien.net, 2010) MARD has also praised PES
highly in press briefings, stating that the “PES policy has facilitated the
construction of a market-based mechanism with the government’s orienta-
tion… reflecting economic transactions… between service buyers… and
sellers” (VNFF, Briefing 4, 2016). In a meeting in the first half of 2017,
MARD’s Vice Minister emphasized that the “PES policy has moved in the
right direction, triggering effective results,… creating a new sustainable
source of budget… for forest protection… contributing to the improvement of
local livelihoods… uplifting the lives of ethnic minority people living in
mountainous areas… contributing to environmental protection, mitigating
and adapting to climate change.” (VNFF, Briefing 1, 2017). MARD has
selected PES as one of the best 10 policies for the agriculture sector for
the 2010–2015 period. In this way, government figures demonstrating
‘PES success’ have helped give the policy stronger coherence and po-
litical traction.
Local governments benefiting from PES revenue have also joined
forces, praising PES in similar terms and inflating its success. Speaking
to the Communist Party’s Newspaper, the Vice Chairman of a Son La
district People’s Committee noted that payment from PES has con-
tributed to “uniting ethnic minority people, improving community internal
relationships, contributing to forest protection… generating revenue for
construction, improvement and maintenance of public work” (Dang Cong
San Newspaper, 2017). Local authorities of another province also re-
marked in a newspaper interview that PES was “a breakthrough policy,
addressing multiple outstanding problems concerning environment, economic
and society” (Nghe An Newspaper, 2017).
The ‘success’ of PES has also been reproduced through the state-led
campaign of having ethnic minority people speaking highly about PES.
For example, on its webpage, VNFF features an interview with a Hmong
ethnic minority village head in a remote area of Lai Chau province in
the Northwest that reads: “Before the implementation of PES, the village’s
forests were often on fire; many local people exploited the forest resources
illegally…. Villagers believed that protecting the forest was time consuming
and they did not derive any money. Thus, the village’s forest was degraded.
PES has been a new wind, motivating local people to have strong attachment
to the forest. Previously, villagers worked their swidden farms which con-
sumed much time and effort but with low efficiency. Currently [with PES
money]…villagers collectively clean the forest and patrol the forest
monthly… each household receives VND 4 million per year so no one has to
convert the forest into swidden field any longer.” (VNFF, 2018 Vietnam’s
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Green Future).
However, this rhetoric of success has not necessarily matched the
reality of the initial payment structure. Indeed, since the national roll
out of PES schemes, MARD has been trying hard to increase the level of
PES payment from ‘service buyers’ and manage the difficulties of PES
implementation, particularly the adoption of the K coefficient factor on
the ground (Tran et al., 2016; To et al., 2012; Pham et al., 2008;
UNREDD and MARD, 2010). MARD has justified their demand for in-
creasing the payment level by highlighting ‘outstanding problems’ as-
sociated with the payment system. VNFF’s Briefing 1 in 2017 reads “PES
revenue has been lower than the potential, as the revenue is derived from
three types of services … out of five as identified in Decree 99…” and “some
buyers using environmental services (hydropower plants, water supply and
tourist companies) have not yet fulfilled their payment obligations or made
late payments”. VNFF’s Briefing 4 in 2016 reveals: “At present PES pay-
ment does not correspond to the local people’s labor value [that contributes
to forest protection] and their basic need [referring to the low level of
PES payment].” By blaming PES end-users for lower then expected
revenue, MARD has masked problems arising from PES implementation
and further legitimated the justification to increase PES payments.
With financial support from the INGO, MARD established a team
charged with revising Decree 99, with the aim of increasing the pay-
ment levels so that more PES revenue can be derived in the future. The
team also revised Decree 157, issued by the government in 2013 to
introduce stringent mechanisms for punishing the late payment of PES
fees. The revised draft of Decree 99, approved by the Prime Minister in
November 2016, stated new payment levels of 36 VND/kwh and 52
VND/m3 water. Approval of the revision means PES annual revenue
would increase from the current level of US$50 million to US$60-70
million – representing a large increase in annual funding for MARD.
Yet all the problems concerning PES implementation on the ground
were ignored by the team, as detailed in Section 9. We analyse below
the socio-political processes through which the PES policy was enacted.
6. The development of PES policy – the “how” question
The impetus to develop PES schemes in Vietnam was driven by a
number of high-level and well-connected individuals at the national
level, in a context wherein the roles of policymakers, technical experts
and donors were often blurred. A number of these individuals, in-
cluding two key actors referred to as Mr Bac and Mr Hoa11, were in-
terviewed in detail to shed light on how PES advanced from the pilot
stage to become a much-celebrated national policy initiative.
Before 2008, Mr Bac worked for a government forest research or-
ganization. He revealed that he learned about PES through his ‘parti-
cipation in several PES meetings in the region’. At the end of 2007, when
the INGO started its environmental project that would become the pilot
watershed PES scheme in Lam Dong and Son La, his own organization
became its local project partner. As per Mr Bac’s recommendation, PES
was included in the project. He claimed, ‘PES was not in the program
agenda from the beginning. I was the one who recommended the inclusion of
it into the agenda and my recommendation was accepted by… the project
manager’. As state forest areas would be involved and there would be
likely impacts on the forest and local communities, approval from both
MARD and the Prime Minister was required for the PES pilot project to
proceed.
Social relationships played a key role in achieving official en-
dorsement for the pilot to be considered a success. Having close con-
nections with MARD through his work relations proved to be an asset
for Mr Bac in achieving approval from the Ministry and ultimately the
Prime Minister. Through his connection with MARD, Mr Bac was in-
troduced to Mr Hoa from the Office of the Government, a technical
advisor to the Prime Minister who oversaw agriculture and forestry
11
Pseudonyms are used for the actors in this paper.
P. To, W. Dressler
policies. As time went by, the two of them, alongside the project
manager, had developed a close working and personal relationship.
Their relationship was facilitated by visits to their homes, the exchange
of gifts and fine dining - a common practice between business and
government figures to establish close relationships and trust in
Vietnam. Instructed by Mr Hoa, and based on the project’s strong fi-
nancial and technical support for the pilot, MARD submitted a letter
and a workplan to the Prime Minister, through Mr Hoa’s office, seeking
the Prime Minister’s permission in piloting PES in Lam Dong and Son
La.
The Prime Minister’s Decision 380 approving the PES pilot scheme
was enacted on 10 April 2008. Mr Bac described the process as ‘super-
speed’ (siêu nhanh), given that the normal process of approval from
MARD and the Prime Minister would typically take at least a year after
submission. Although the close connections between Mr Bac, Mr Hoa,
project managers and senior MARD officials contributed to the speed of
the process, two developments helped during the lobbying period. The
project agreed to allocate US$1.8 million for the PES pilot in Lam Dong
province and to fund a study tour proposed by Mr Hoa for senior
government officials to visit various PES watershed schemes in the
US.12 Members of the study tour included Mr Hoa, MARD’s Vice Min-
ister, the head of MARD’s Legal Department, senior officials each from
the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the Ministry of
Finance, and the Ministry of Justice, and the head of the Department of
Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) from Lam Dong province.
The inclusion of key policymakers from these agencies was not only
useful for hastening the approval of the PES pilot, but also for scaling up
the model nationwide at a later stage.
These high-level networked individuals, including Mr Bac, Mr Hoa
and senior officials from MARD, as well as the financial support of the
project, were key drivers of the rapid scaling up of PES mechanisms.
Decree 99 approving the national roll-out of PES schemes was issued by
the Prime Minister on 24 September 2010, while PES was still being
trialled in Lam Dong and Son La. About six months after the pilot
commenced in 2008, Mr Bac retired from his research organization and
quickly moved to work as a senior policy advisor for the project. His
existing connections with senior policymakers, knowledge of the policy
formulation process, and access to project resources allowed him to
accelerate the policymaking process. Working on the project, Mr Bac
had a better opportunity to mobilize resources to invest in the re-
lationship with Mr Hoa. Based on advice from Mr Hoa and Mr Bac,
MARD decided to establish a team to draft the national decree on PES.
The team included all members who were on study tour to the US
learning the ins and outs of different PES schemes. Although Mr Bac no
longer worked for the government, MARD included him in the team.
Despite Mr Hoa overseeing the policy approval process, MARD invited
him to join the decree drafting team, on the basis that he and Mr Bac
were among only a few experts in the country who had good knowledge
of PES at both a policy and practical level. The real reason for inclusion
was ‘to secure financial support [from the project through Mr Bac
working for it] and to have a smooth connection with the Prime Minister
through Mr Hoa working in the Office of the Government’ as one member of
the team shared with us (Personal communication, October 2012). Mr
Bac recalled that to come up with the final draft of the decree, the team
had to meet more than 20 times, often on weekends, at times at MARD’s
office, in hotels or expensive resorts outside Hanoi. The project covered
the costs associated with these meetings such as venue rental, meals,
accommodations and airfares. It also paid per diems if team members
worked on weekends and ‘overtime’ payments for their time ‘devoted’
to the preparation of the decree. Emphasizing the importance of this
financial support from the project in the formulation of the decree, Mr
Bac stated ‘There would be no decree 99 if we did not have support from the
12
For further information of the study tour see McElwee et al (2014) and
McElwee (2016).
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Land Use Policy 81 (2019) 582–593
project.’ Thus, both social relationships and financial support from the
project were essential to enrol government officials in the adoption of
PES in Vietnam. Efforts by the project and officials were well paid. The
Prime Minister approved Decree 99, marking the rolling out of PES
policy nationwide in April 2010.
Various interrelated ideas, events and outcomes led the government
to label the PES policy as an overall ‘success’. Underpinned by strate-
gically cultivated social relationships, the rapid roll out of the pilot,
marked by the issuance of Decree 99, was deemed to be highly efficient
and effective. Moreover, the PES program mobilised substantial
amounts of revenue each year. According to the government, more
forest areas were supposedly being protected, there were fewer forest
violations, and a large number of the local poor received PES money.
Government reports and government-run media increasingly quoted
government officials at national and local levels, using statements and
figures such as ‘PES revenue has contributed to the protection of over 5.875
million ha of forest, accounting for 44 percent of the country’s total forest
area’ (VNFF, 2017a, 2017b) and that “Annual PES revenue is about 1200
billion VND [roughly US$50 million], accounting for 20 percent of the
total investment allocated to the forestry sector.” (Dan Toc va Mien Nui
Newspaper, 2017)
Indeed, the government has claimed that PES revenue has reached
over 500,000 local people living near the forest, most of whom are poor
ethnic minorities. According to the Director of VNFF, “PES has made a
great contribution to forest protection… and to the country’s socio-economic
development…PES has contributed to improved local livelihoods, providing
millions of jobs for local people living in the uplands… successfully con-
tributed to poverty alleviation, securing political stability and social order
and security.” (Tap Chi Moi Truong, 2017). But how successful was this
program in reality?
7. The government’s logic of PES policy – the “why” question
Both forestry agencies and INGOs upheld a sustained campaign that
espoused and invested in the discourses of PES policy success, from
technical capacity to poverty reduction wins. However, moving beyond
these constant markers of ‘PES success’, particularly at the local level, a
very different governance picture emerges. Indeed, much revenue from
the national PES program largely intended for ‘service providers’, in-
cluding poor local households, has become an important funding source
for the forestry sector itself, providing 22 percent of the total budget
needed (Tap Chi Moi Truong, 2017).13 Vietnamese government funding
for the forestry sector has been severely and chronically constrained
(MARD, 2015; To et al., 2012), so much so that other sources of
funding, such as the PES scheme, were needed to support long-term
forest governance initiatives. At present, the annual government
budget allocated to the sector only covers about 29 percent of its op-
erating costs (MARD, 2015).
As detailed above, the implementation of PES has facilitated the
formation of a national fund, the VNFF, administered by the VNFOREST
within MARD, and a system of provincial funds to distribute PES rev-
enue. As of July 2015, 37 provincial funds were in operation, each with
about 10–15 staff, whose salary mainly came from PES revenue. In
some provinces like Lam Dong and Son La, each fund employs more
than 30 full time staff, all paid by PES revenue.
A recent report by MARD reveals that a total of 58 watersheds are
now involved in PES schemes, generating 397 contracts with service
users, with another 72-pending signature at the time of publication
(MARD, 2015). Among the signed contracts, 45 are directly managed by
the VNFF; the remaining 352 are managed by provincial funds. About
79 percent of the total PES revenue is collected by the national fund, for
13
The remaining 49 percent needed for the sector’s operation is covered by
funding from Overseas Development Assistance and foreign and private sector
investments (MARD, 2015).
P. To, W. Dressler
the reason that most of the watersheds identified straddle more than
one province; and the remaining 21 percent of the revenue is collected
by provincial funds. Between 2011 and 2014, about 3898 billion VND
(US$185 million) in PES revenue was generated, most of which (98
percent) came from hydropower plants; the remainder (2 percent) was
derived from water supply or tourist companies (MARD, 2015).
The adoption of PES has strengthened VNFOREST’s power in var-
ious ways. First, the large amount of PES revenue has elevated VNFO-
REST’s reputation in relation to other government agencies. Within
government circles, the forestry sector has been commonly perceived as
relatively weak, mainly due to its minimal contribution to GDP (about 2
percent) (Forest Development Strategy 2006–2020), vis-a-vis other
sectors, such as clean water and electricity production. The revenue
derived from PES has made the sector less reliant on government
funding and to some extent challenged popular perceptions in Vietnam
about the forestry sector’s weakness.
Second, with more than 70 percent of country’s forest managed by
state entities such as Management Boards (MBs) and SFCs (see Table 1),
most of the PES revenue falls in the hand of the state. VNFF recently
reported that PES revenue has made a considerable contribution to
addressing chronic financial shortages for 208 MBs (VNFF, 2017a,
2017b). Although Decree 99 suggests that MBs and SFCs involve local
households in forest protection through contractual ‘forest protection’
arrangements so that households can benefit from PES, it is the MBs and
SFCs that have the ultimate power in deciding who will be contracted.
There is mounting evidence that many contracts have been given out to
those who have personal connections with MBs and SFCs, a similar
dynamic observed in contractual arrangements concerning the dis-
tribution of forestland managed by SFCs (To et al., 2015).
Decree 99 allows the national fund to retain 0.5 percent of the total
PES revenue collected from buyers that have direct contracts with
them. This 0.5 percent, equalling US$200,000 per year is a very gen-
erous amount for the fund’s operation. The fund has used this income
for various activities. These include topping up staff salaries, funding
government mass media agencies to distribute stories about the ‘suc-
cess’ of PES, or ‘problems’ of late or low payments, and producing
posters, newsletters and leaflets promoting the PES ‘miracle’. In addi-
tion, this income has been used for officials from the fund to visit local
areas to supervise and oversee PES implementation. The income and
these activities have helped strengthened the fund’s capacity and re-
putation and have also been levereaged to secure further funding from
major donors, such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for PES
implementation.
At the local level, provincial funds have benefited from PES revenue
in a similar way. Decree 99 allows the provinical fund to retain 10
percent of the PES revenue channelled to them (from both the national
fund and payments from buyers who sign contracts with the provincial
fund for service provision). In provinces with large watershed areas
and/or a good number of (large-scale) buyers (hydropower plants),
such as Lam Dong and Dak Nong in the Central Highlands, 10 percent
provides a substantial source of income. One provincial fund was al-
legedly considering buying an expensive car with this income. In an-
other province, part of the fund was used for construction of a long
concrete wall to prevent forest encroachers. Due to managing these
large amounts of PES revenue, local funds have become important and
‘lucrative agencies” (béo bở, to use the words of a local NGO staffer)
that many people now want to work with.
PES has also provided significant benefits to commune PCs. Though
the Law on Forest Protection and Development does not recognize
commune PCs as a group that is eligible to receive forestland, a large
area of forestland (3.1 million ha, Table 1 shows) continues to be
managed by commune PCs. Recent figures from MARD show that 467
commune PCs and another 195 state agencies (e.g. military organiza-
tions, schools) have received PES revenue (Thiennhien.net, 2018).
Many commune PCs managing watershed areas with hydropower
plants have received PES payments. In some areas like Hieu commune
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in Kon Tum province, commune PCs have signed forest protection
contracts with some households under which part of the PES revenue is
transferred to the households. In other places, commune PCs keep PES
revenue for themselves.
PES has also reinvigorated SFCs. With the collapse of the forestry
sector and lack of state revenue, a large number of SFCs could barely
cover their operating costs. At their height, SFCs were accused of cor-
ruption and involvement in land grabbing (To et al., 2015). Their in-
efficiency in land management was widely viewed as negatively im-
pacting both forest resources and poor villagers, particularly in the
Central Highlands region (To et al., 2015). The ongoing problems as-
sociated with SFCs have triggered a strong call among local NGOs,
development practitioners and some key government figures for the
dismantling of poor-performing and corrupt SFCs, and for the dis-
tribution of land managed by these SFCs to local households, particu-
larly the landless. These advocates have argued that local households
are in a better position than SFCs to protect the forest and bring the
land into productive use (To et al., 2015).
8. PES implementation and poverty
In Vietnam, here is no clear evidence that PES has assisted the poor.
First, at present environmental and socioeconomic baselines for mon-
itoring and evaluating PES performance have not yet been established
(Pham et al., 2013). A donor report (USAID et al. 2015: 15) highlights
that “we cannot confirm that payment for forest ecosystem service is pro-
poor, simply because we do not have data on how many people who have
received PFES payment are poor, vis-à-vis the number of better-off and
average households.” Another study (Pham et al., 2013: 53) emphasizes
that “findings on the social impacts of PFES are mixed, and credible data
showing PFES as having a positive impact on local incomes is lacking.”
Limited baseline studies and credible data thus contrasts with the
government’s claim that PES has “successfully contributed to poverty al-
leviation”. MARD has reported that annually each household under each
PES payment scheme receives 1.8 million VND (US$83) on average
(MARD, 2015). In the country’s north-western region where poverty
levels are the highest, forest areas per household are small, which
suggests PES revenue given to households is also smaller.14 This amount
is apparently too low to have any reasonable impact on household
poverty reduction.
Second, MARD’s claim that PES has benefited the upland poor is
based on somewhat simplistic assumptions. MARD has assumed that
because most of the households with PES payments are in the uplands
–– the area dominated by ethnic minority peoples and where the pov-
erty rate is the highest –– that by default PES will benefit poor ethnic
minorities. MARD is correct that the country’s uplands are the regions
dominated by ethnic minority peoples and the regions with highest
level of poverty incidents.15 However, to date there are no data con-
cerning the type of households who have received PES payments. Cri-
tical studies on forest governance in Vietnam have shown that local
elite capture has been a widespread problem in the uplands, with po-
litically powerful actors capturing most benefits from forest access and
use at a cost to the upland poor (see To, 2007; Clement and Amezaga,
2009; UNREDD and MARD, 2010).
Third, there is evidence that existing, unresolved land tenure pro-
blems in Vietnam has impeded PES implementation (Pham et al., 2013;
14
When conducting fieldwork in a village of Son La province, [the lead au-
thor] experienced a household with annual PES income of 56,000 VND (US
$2.4)
15
Government data on poverty in 2016 shows that the poverty rates are
highest in the North-west region (16 percent) and in the Central Highlands
(13.1 percent). Poverty rates in other regions are lower (e.g. 9.8 percent in
Central Coast Areas and 6.5 percent in the Mekong River Delta). See Statistical
Summary Book of Vietnam in 2017 for more detail.
P. To, W. Dressler
To et al., 2012) and has excluded the poor from payment schemes. The
determination and distribution of PES revenue requires a clear and
consistent system of land tenure (e.g. clear boundary demarcations and
verifiable legal rights for landholders). Although Decree 99 requires
provincial People’s Committees to allocate enough money to undertake
a detailed inventory of forestland in each province, few have sufficient
resources to do this. The head of the Forestry Department in Lao Cai
province remarked in a recent PES workshop: ‘To do such a detailed
inventory we need about 100 billion VND [US$4.76 million], but the
provincial People’s Committee only have 1.8 million VND [US$85,700] for
this activity’ (PanNature, 2016). As a result of these resource constraints,
land tenure problems persist, causing delays in PES revenue distribu-
tion. In some provinces, the disbursement rate is less than 20 percent
(MARD, 2015). In other provinces, the provincial People’s Committee
decided to distribute PES revenue to households who had received land
under devolution. However, records on forestland allocation (e.g. the
size of the plot, demarcation, status of the forest) were often incorrect,
due to the haste of the original devolution process (To, 2007; To and
Tran, 2013). In an internal meeting on PES in February in 2010,
MARD’s Vice Minister told his staff and local officials who were re-
sponsible for PES implementation that, ‘We could not wait for the land
tenure problem to be addressed before we distributed PES revenue. As long as
the local community are happy with distribution, we should go ahead.’ In
addition, there have been many changes in the classification of forest
areas and forest landholders between the original devolution allocation
and the implementation of the PES pilot, mainly due to resettlements
associated with forest conversion due to infrastructure development (To
et al., 2012). In provinces such as Hoa Binh and Son La, many new
households have been established since the devolution of forestlands in
the late 1990s and early 2000s. As PES revenue was only distributed to
households already holding land, those established after the land allo-
cation have been excluded from PES payment schemes.
Fourth, enduring problems with Vietnam’s land tenure system has
constrained the number of households that could potentially benefit
from PES. Decree 99 stipulated that local households living near the
forest were entitled to PES revenue through forest protection sub-con-
tracts signed with the SFCs and MBs. However, the SFCs and MBs in
many provinces selected only those households that had previously
signed forest protection contracts with them under the 661 Program.
This meant that many households without existing contracts were also
excluded from PES payments. The reason given for this, according to
the head of an SFC in Lam Dong, was largely due to resource con-
straints:
‘To sign a contract [forest protection under PES scheme] with a new
household we need to collect a lot of data, from household demo-
graphy, income, labour availability to their cultivation land. We also
need to go to the field with them, check the status of the forest,
allocate the forest to them and prepare the contract. This would take
years. We did not have enough resources and capacity to do this’.
In some areas in Lam Dong, this uneven distribution of PES benefits
has triggered tensions between household groups (To et al., 2012;
UNREDD and MARD, 2010).
Finally, the implementation of PES has excluded an important op-
portunity for widening land access to the local poor. In 2003, learning
from the malfunction of a number of SFCs, the Politburo in its
Resolution 28 suggested these SFCs transfer land and forest to local
households. This suggestion was based on the Politburo’s assessment
that “land and forest use productivity of the state forest and state agri-
cultural enterprises [now companies] is weak. Land conflicts between local
households and state forest companies is widespread…. Enterprises do not
care about local people particularly ethnic minorities.”. However, the
process of transferring land to local households has been slow, parti-
cularly since the implementation of the PES policy. A report by the
National Assembly shows that in 2012 there were 347,000 households
in the country who did not have enough land for cultivation, most of
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Land Use Policy 81 (2019) 582–593
whom were in the Central Highlands (National Assembly, 2012). In
2013, through Decision 1565, MARD approved a plan to restructure the
forestry sector. This triggered high hopes that poorly-performing SFCs
would be dismantled, making way for further land devolution. Ac-
cording to the plan, existing SFCs (148 in total in 2013) would be
classified into three groups according to forest quality and those SFCs
managing poor quality forest areas (group three) would be dissolved
and the land distributed to local households.16
Despite the passage of this legislation, the dismantling of SFCs in
group three has not translated into practice, partly because PES im-
plementation has generated a new source of revenue for SFCs managing
forest in areas where hydropower plants are located. According to de-
cree 99, SFCs as forest users are allowed to retain 10 percent of the total
PES revenue channelled to them. The decree also allows SFCs to retain
more than 10 percent provided that they are able to use this to cover
the cost of protecting the forest in the watershed area. This has pro-
vided SFCs ample leeway to retain as much PES revenue as possible.
The country’s Central Highlands region is home to 55 SFCs (over one
third of the country’s 148 SFCs) and more than one million ha of forest,
equalling more than 50 percent of the total forest area managed by SFCs
in the country (MARD, 2015). The region is also home to 118 hydro-
power plants – almost half the total number of hydropower plants in the
country (Personal communication with an expert from a local NGO,
April 2016). The implementation of PES has provided these SFCs with
an important income source for their operations. According to MARD,
81 SFCs or nearly 60 percent of the country’s total SFCs are receiving
PES revenue (Thiennhien.net, 2018).
In Kon Tum province of the Central Highlands, more than 90 per-
cent of PES revenue goes to state organizations (primarily SFCs), as
shown in Table 2.
In this province, before the implementation of PES, Kong Plong SFC
which manages about 80,000 ha of forest in the province, did not have
enough money to pay their staff. The head of the SFC’s division in Mang
La district, who has seven staff managing 18,000 ha of forest confirmed:
‘It was common that payment of our salary was late for 6–7 months;
sometimes it was for two years.’ The implementation of PES, however, has
contributed about 27 billion VND (US$1.2 million) each year to the
SFC’s budget, about 2 billion VND (US$90,000) of which goes to the
Mang La division. For many SFCs, PES revenue has effectively covered
their operating costs. Referring to the importance of PES revenue in
sustaining their activities, the head of the Mang La division stated: ‘we
are safe now.’ On the one hand, PES has provided SFCs with a new
source of funding which helps sustain their existence. On the other
hand, the implementation of PES has stripped the opportunity of the
poor to access land.
This confirms that PES policy has been strongly driven by the
Vietnamese forestry administration to suit its own objectives and PES
success has been intentionally produced for enrolment and the rolling
out of PES schemes nation-wide. Despite government rhetoric of policy
success, the development and implementation of PES has revealed some
major shortcomings, as we show below.
9. Rethinking success? Determining payment levels and
implementation hurdles
Drawn from neoliberal thinking, PES policy has been portrayed by
the government as a ‘market-based tool’ (công cụ thị trường) that was
‘scientifically developed’ (phát triển dựa trên cơ sở khoa học), smoothly
implemented and of benefit to many poor households (MARD, 2015).
However, a detailed examination of both the development and
16
Group one included companies managing high quality natural forest, which
would need to be fully funded by the government. Group two comprises com-
panies managing medium-quality natural forest, which would operate as joint
stock companies, with the state maintaining a majority share.
P. To, W. Dressler
Table 2
Distribution of PES revenue in Kon Tum province by forest user.
Source: People’s Committee of Kon Tum province (2015).
Forest user Total area entitled to Proportion of the PES
PES payment (ha) payment (%)
State Forest Companies 206,896 43.3
Management Boards 117.078 24.5
Commune People’s 110,791 23.2
Committees
Local households 26,229 5.5
Private companies 16,706 3.5
Total forest area 477.700 100
implementation of the policy reveals major inconsistencies that have
been largely depoliticized by the state. An example of the intervention
of the state in the design of PES policy is the way the payment levels
were set. Table 3 presents different PES payment levels determined by
two different research groups and the methods they adopted (as hired
by MARD) to calculate payment levels.
Table 3 shows a big difference in payment levels determined by the
two research teams, although both claimed their methods of calculation
were scientifically sound. Our aim here is not to assess which method is
more scientifically reliable, but to show the politics behind the state’s
determination of the PES payment level. Factors that could have con-
tributed to differences in PES payment levels included differences in the
quality of watershed areas, different levels of forest cover, different
topographic and hydrologic conditions, and different land slopes,
among others. This may reflect the ‘scientific uncertainty’ of measuring
and valuing ecosystem services as highlighted by several critical studies
on PES (e.g. McAfee, 2012; Shapiro, 2013; Corbera et al., 2009).
Nonetheless, this ‘scientific calculation’ is important for legitimating
PES and its overall discourses of success.
In the end, as our interviews with Mr Bac and Mr Hoa revealed, the
payment levels set in Decree 99 of 40 VND/m3 water and 20 VND/kwh
had little to do with the methods of determining payment levels devised
by either of the two research teams or ‘scientific’ calculation as claimed
by the government. According to Mr Hoa, who was in direct contact
with the Prime Minister, the basis for the Prime Minister’s decision on
the payment levels was that ‘He [the Prime Minister] wanted to make
sure there would be no substantial change to the existing price of water and
electricity so that industry using water and electricity would not be affected.’
The four (‘K coefficient’) factors used to determine the payment
level set out in Decree 99 have also proven to be too difficult for most
participating provinces to apply on the ground. Determining the four
factors requires a detailed survey of each forest site (e.g. forest type,
status, location and origin) included in the scheme, which is beyond the
capacity and available resources of provincial authorities (McElwee,
2012). Some provinces that have tried to adopt the K coefficient system
to determine payment levels have experienced local tensions as villa-
gers demanded greater equity in payment distribution (UNREDD and
MARD, 2010; Pham et al., 2013; McElwee, 2012). As a result, most
provincial People’s Committees use only one payment level. These
implementation difficulties are also absent from government discourse
Table 3
Comparison of PES payment levels determined for water and electricity services.
Source: * Winrock International’s Asia Regional Biodiversity Conservation Program (2011), ** Vuong (2014).
Items Team 1*
Payment level for Water regulation service 14.9 VND
(VND/m3)
Payment level for Electricity (VND/kwh) 49.6 VND for reduction of sediment of the reservoir
Method adopted for calculation of Adoption of Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model to
payment level predict water runoff and sediment into the reservoir.
Watershed area where method for Da Nhim watershed area in Dong Nai which provides
calculation was adopted environmental services to Da Nhim hydropower plant.
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Land Use Policy 81 (2019) 582–593
on PES.
In sum, there exist outstanding problems associated with the design
and implementation of PES in Vietnam that are largely ignored or
disguised by government discourses proclaiming the ‘success’ of the
policy. We discuss below the findings and conclude the paper.
10. Discussion and conclusions
Globally, market-based mechanisms such as PES and REDD+ —
instruments premised on exchanging environmental services as com-
modities — continue to have considerable policy traction among net-
works of actors involved in climate change mitigation and nature
conservation. Despite decades of trenchant critique (McCarthy and
Prudham, 2004; Castree, 2008; Igoe and Brockington, 2007; Büscher,
2008; Fletcher and Büscher, 2017), state and non-state actors continue
to sell the rhetoric of success (Lund et al., 2017) of such policy in-
struments even though outcomes show otherwise (To et al., 2015; Tran
et al., 2016).
Indeed, convinced by such instruments, the Vietnamese government
has fully reproduced and embraced the narrative of PES success, and
thereby made it central to national forest policy. Since implementing a
national PES policy in 2010, the Vietnamese government has hailed the
policy as a major breakthrough in achieving forest protection and im-
provements to local livelihoods. Thus far, government discourse has
focused on the substantial amount of PES revenue raised and that rural
households have benefitted as evidence of broader policy success.
Moreover, the claims that the policy is based on ‘scientific evidence’,
such as the ‘K coefficient’ factors used to determine PES payment levels,
have been used politically to justify the ‘scaling up’ of PES schemes
nationwide. Overall, then, such discourses have given PES policy and
practices the appearance of being consistent, coherent and highly suc-
cessful.
Using a discourse analysis approach to policy documents and
briefings and through a range of interviews with informants, we have
examined how and why PES policy, practices and notions of success
have been produced. Our findings highlight that the development and
implementation of PES policy in Vietnam was heavily donor and state
driven (also see Pham et al., 2013). This process, we argue, depended
on the influence of networked individuals –– senior policymakers,
technical experts and donors –– and their ability to leverage access to
key decision makers and funding sources. These networked actors
served as ‘PES brokers’, ‘acting in the interface of different social or life
worlds, knowledge and power’ (Lewis and Mosse, 2006, p.10); they
played multiple roles, depending on different contexts. They acted as
‘scientists’, contributing their scientific knowledge to inform policy
discussions that leveraged success by way of effectiveness and effi-
ciency. They served as policymakers when required to explain the
policy to officials from other government agencies and local authorities,
and they guided the implementation process. They worked for NGOs as
policy advisors and provided financial and technical support to the
policy formulation process. These actors, with their blurred boundaries,
used various positions and employed different tactics and practices to
influence the process, translating their own and the state ideas and
Team 2**
180–200 VND
96–107 VND
Adoption of Production Function and Standard Method.
Hoa Binh watershed area which provides environmental
services to Hoa Binh and Son La hydropower plants.
P. To, W. Dressler
interests into PES policy and practices. These actors leveraged a form of
power not accessible to villagers, who might otherwise have been able
to ensure a more equitable policy. We have highlighted that the design,
promotion and implementation of PES policy cannot be understood
without taking into account the shifting roles of these networked actors,
their power and interests, and the historical context that influences how
PES policy ideas and practices are negotiated and reproduced across
scales. This points to the dynamic political processes through which PES
as a ‘market-based’ mechanism has been translated into state policy and
practices for furthering government objectives. In this context, then,
PES does not necessarily have much to do with maintaining or im-
proving environmental services.
The narratives of PES success have been strategically produced by
the government to justify the rapid scaling up of PES policy nationwide.
Key elements of reproducing and valorising notional PES successes in-
clude a government-run media campaign emphasising the significant
amount of PES revenue raised, increased areas of forest being protected
and expanded under PES, decreased forest violation cases, and the
number of poor local households receiving PES revenue. The myriad
PES stories told by the government aim to construct PES as an attractive
policy with multiple beneficial objectives. Here, gaining the initial trust
from the populace deflects or conceals any future concerns and doubts
about PES.
This, then, reflects the institutional ‘back door’ of PES — an in-
stitutional space where close social relationships between different
actors within and beyond the state were fostered and mobilized in the
design and implementation of PES policy. These socio-political pro-
cesses were embedded in institutional and organizational contexts
driven by the sustained desire of the state forest administration for
power and financial resources, and thereby needing to sell PES success
through various means. This desire is historically rooted in the forest
administration’s preoccupation with rectifying their weak political
standing and fiscal position.
The government’s discourse on PES success has benefited the forest
administration in varying ways. First, it has helped this agency con-
solidate power. The implementation of PES has enhanced the forest
administration’s political legitimacy and changed the conventional
perception about its management weakness. PES has generated a large
source of income, providing a new financial resource to many forest
agencies and local governments. Lucrative revenue derived from PES
facilitated the establishment and functioning of an extensive network of
forest protection and management funds across the country. PES rev-
enue has benefited a large number of SFCs, MBs and commune People’s
Committees whose mandates are to protect the forest regardless of PES
payment. Using PES revenue to pay these agencies raises questions
about PES additionality.
Second, PES has given new life to many dysfunctional FSCs ear-
marked for dismantling, hence sustaining the outstanding problems
associated with state-led forestry and the structural inequalities in PES
revenue distribution. The continued dominance of state forest entities
such as MBs of protected areas, SFCs and commune PCs has been
identified as the main obstacle to further forestland devolution, wor-
sening the plight of the landless (To et al., 2015). The corrupt practices
of these agencies in land use and forest management has come at the
expense of the needs of local people and the landless poor, particularly
in upland areas (To et al., 2015). In this case, the adoption and intense
promotion of a national PES policy framework has legitimised and
strengthened state control over forest resources. Furthermore, the
government’s description of PES as a ‘new mechanism’ ignores the
persistence of existing power structures within the forestry sector (To
et al., 2015). Labelling PES a ‘market-based tool’ and ‘innovative’
practice has downplayed the continuity of state control over Vietnam’s
forests, local elite capture and inequity in land distribution (To et al.,
2015). In this respect, while PES carries the trappings of a ‘market-
based’ mechanism, it effectively emerges as an extension of state con-
trol over the forestry sector. Indeed, PES policies that were portrayed
592
Land Use Policy 81 (2019) 582–593
through discourses of ‘success’ had little to do with scientific evidence
and internal coherence, but were rather strongly influenced by parti-
cular networked individuals within and beyond the government.
Unless the underlying problems of poor state-led forest governance,
land tenure and inequitable distribution of PES revenue are addressed,
the expansion and acceleration of PES throughout the country is un-
likely to see the policy meet its stated objectives of forest protection and
poverty alleviation as claimed by the government. Instead, the PES
scheme will likely continue to facilitate the maximization of the ad-
ministration’s desire for power and resources, at the expense of local
communities whose access to land has been constrained by PES.
Aligning with other critical studies on market-based mechanisms,
we have highlighted the varying socio-political and economic problems
associated with these mechanisms and how they are often rendered
invisible by policy rhetoric. Ultimately, as other countries roll out PES
initiatives under platforms of success, critical studies must continue to
look inside the belly of the ‘PES beast’ as it is scaled up, implemented
and consolidated in line with narratives of success that stabilise and
normalise the approach over time.
Acknowledgements
We thank three reviewers and Sango Mahanty for their valuable
comments for the paper. We would like to thank Forest Trends for their
great support during the course of fieldwork and Nguyen Viet Dung and
Nguyen Hai Van of PanNature for informative exchanges. An earlier
draft of this paper was presented at the Vietnam Update 2016 at
Australian National University.
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