Land Reform, National Park and Local Livelihoods: from Theory to Practice

Recently, the Southern upland of Vietnam has rapidly transformed due to the implementation of a series of institutional reforms, natural conservation and development programs. Research findings show that in response to impacts of institutional reforms and development programs, local people have tended to diversify their livelihood strategies, but their patterns of livelihood diversification are various and highly dependent on their background and benefits gained from such policies. Moreover, villagers have also developed new coping strategies and long-term social engagements to respond to the unequal resource control and social differentiation. Losers - the poor have developed various forms of short-term resistance which may be either collective or individual and either open declaration or hidden transcripts. By contrast, the winners ? the wealthy and powerful those who benefiting from such policies and related programs, have usually employed strategies of compromise and negotiation. In a long- term in everyday practice, local people have developed adaptive strategies, such as, rearrangementa of land tenure, social structure, social relations, and rearrangements of production.