COMMUNITY FOREST MANAGEMENT AND PROTECTION IN QUANG NAM PROVINCE, VIET NAM Huynh Van Thuong, Ha Thi Minh Thu & Barney Long WWF MOSAIC Project Management Of Strategic Areas for Integrated Conservation Abstract The indigenous communities of the mountainous regions of Quang Nam province have high levels of vulnerability due to their isolation, lack of productive assets, lack of basic social services, high dependence on natural resources and a lack of defences against external factors. The WWF MOSAIC project is working to address these issues in terms of sustainable natural resource management. A series of activities are under implementation and development that aim to address each of the key conditions required for effective community based natural resource management. These include forest land allocation to community groups, the development of community forest management and protection regulations and ‘Village Protection Teams’. A pilot initiative was established in Tabhing commune in 2003 and the methods employed are explained. Through the training of local government agencies, this approach has now been replicated in 16 additional communes throughout the province’s uplands. Successes and constraints of the pilot site and the replication sites are outlined as are recommendations for strengthening of the process and further actions that are required to convert decreased vulnerability into poverty alleviation results. Introduction Quang Nam is a central province of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam located between 14 o 57’22’’ - 16 o 04’28’’ north and 107 o 13’35’’ - 108 o 42’06’’ east. Quang Nam covers 10,405.14km 2 (Department of Land Administration, 2000) and is divided into 17 districts and two towns. Twelve of these 17 districts have natural forest cover. The population at the end of 2002 was 1,427,117 at an average density of 137 people per km 2 and a population growth rate of over 2% (Anon, 2002). Human demography correlates to the province’s topography, with highest human densities along the coast, decreasing to the west as hills turn to mountains and forest cover increases. Quang Nam is a poor province with a GDP at current prices of 5,242,401 million Dong. Of this total, 30.17% comes from the agriculture and forestry sector, 17.36% from manufacturing and 11.65% from retail (Anon, 2002). Provincial policy is to reduce the agriculture sector’s proportion of its equity to 21% and 13% in 2010 and 2015 respectively. On the contrary, it hopes to increase the proportion of the industrial and