Claudia Zingerli

The Prospects for Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) in Vietnam: A Look at Three Payment Schemes.

Global conservation discourses and practices increasingly rely on market-based solutions to fulfill the dual objective of forest conservation and economic development. Although varied, these interventions are premised on the assumption that natural resources are most effectively managed and preserved while benefiting livelihoods if the market-incentives of a liberalised economy are correctly in place. By examining three nationally supported payment for ecosystem service (PES) schemes in Vietnam we show how insecure land tenure, high transaction costs and high opportunity costs can undermine the long-term benefits of PES programmes for local households and, hence, potentially threaten their livelihood viability. In many cases, the income from PES programmes does not reach the poor because of political and economic constraints. Local elite capture of PES benefits through the monopolization of access to forestland and existing state forestry management are identified as key problems. We argue that as PES schemes create a market for ecosystem services, such markets must be understood not simply as bald economic exchanges between ‘rational actors’ but rather as exchanges embedded in particular socio-political and historical contexts to support the sustainable use of forest resources and local livelihoods in Vietnam.

Colliding Understandings of Biodiversity Conservation in Vietnam: Global Claims, National Interests, and Local Struggles

ABSTRACT In the course of the last decade, biodiversity conservation has become an important policy device in Vietnams environmental sector. This article provides a political ecology analysis of the ascent and implementation of biodiversity conservation policy in Vietnam and draws on a case study of Ba Be district, located in Vietnams northern mountain area. It shows how international conservationists and national counterparts were able to create new policy frameworks and to shape and alter the policy contexts in biodiversity-rich places. The article reveals the frictions among international, national, and local interests in biodiversity resources and points at the limits of strict conservation agendas for socially and environmentally meaningful policy outcomes. Only a path toward renegotiation of the current policy context seems able to mitigate further social and environmental pressure.

40 Jahre SAGUF: Zusammen mehr erreichen40 Years of SAGUF: Achieving More Together

Die SAGUF feierte am 19. Juni 2012 in Langenthal ihr 40-jähriges Bestehen. Der Tag stand im Zeichen von Begegnung und Austausch zu Kernthemen der Arbeit der SAGUF wie Natur schutz und Landschaftsmanagement, Umweltforschung und Methoden des Wissensaustauschs. Besonderes Augenmerk galt der Übersetzung von wissenschaftlichem Wissen in Handeln. Claudia Zingerli, Franziska Schmid, Janine Bolliger 40 Jahre SAGUF: Zusammen mehr erreichen MITTEILUNGEN DER SAGUF