Promotion of The Reallocation of Forest Land from State Company to Local Ethnic Minority People: A Case Study In Dak Nong Province

The government has supported since 2004 the reallocation of forest lands from State companies , with a priority to poor households and ethnic minorities. However this policy effective implementation has been often lagging behind. The study presented here is focussed on Dak Nong Province, and based on field work and interviews, and tries to understand the difficulties and obstacles to this policy.  It found that most of will-be-allocated forest and forest land has been occupied by some local people or converted to use for agricultural crops (cassava, corn) or industrial crops (rubber, coffee, pepper). In fact, this area has been in disputes between SFCs and local people, who include both local ethnic minority people and  ethnic and Kinh migrants from other provinces. Part of the land transferred to local authorities is also barren and infertile land or remote. The study concludes with preliminary recommendations to improve the process of Forest land Allocation and management in future.