Abstract
This paper examines the land cover and land use changes in one village in the Vietnam's northern mountain region. It overviews the changing forest policies in Vietnam from the country's independence in 1954 to 2005 and relates these changes to the management of forest land at the village level. Findings show that until the late-1980s/early-1990s Vietnam's policies encouraged the harvesting of timber for nation building activities and the expansion of cultivated land, leading to the decreased forest area within the village. After this, as government policies changed to encourage forest protection and the planting of trees by local people, tree covered forest land area increased. The trigger for the change in land cover and land use at the village level in both periods is a consistent political intention represented in a series of laws and decrees and consequent extension activities. These established a strong linkage between national and the village level forest governance and led to the almost simultaneous occurrence of national policy change and forest recovery. It is concluded that it is important to recognize the multiple channels that link the government agencies with people and the intensive learning process needed for local people to understand the political intentions behind laws and regulations promulgated at the central government level.
