Document Type: Monitoring and Evaluation

In Burma, due to a multiplicity of laws and regulations relating to land, a wide-ranging set of government institutions are engaged in land administration and management. These institutions have been evolving since the National League for Democracy (NLD)-led administration began in April 2016. It will be necessary to understand these structures carefully in the early sequencing of land governance reforms, and to adapt to changes made by the administration. While the administrative structures at the state level and below are changing, in general the executive branch plays the leading role in land governance. The separate powers in Burma include the executive branch, which is made up of the President, two Vice Presidents, and the Cabinet; the legislative branch, which is made up of the Parliament or the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw; and, the judicial branch, which includes ordinary courts that culminate in a Supreme Court. A fourth important power in Burma is the Armed Forces or Tatmadaw, which has significant influence on land governance through the Ministry of Home Affairs which it controls and on lawmaking through its constitutional guarantee of 25% of the seats in Parliament.

In the executive branch, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation (MoALI) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MOHA), through its General Administration Department (GAD), play a paramount role at all levels in the case of non-reserved or public protected forest land areas. The Ministry of Natural Resources, Environment and Conservation (MONREC) assumes primary responsibility in areas classified as reserved forests, public protected forests, and protected areas, and some community forest designated areas of “unclassified” public forests. The executive branch offices of the State Counsellor and the President, each of whom provide directives to the ministries, also play a critical role in the government. In Parliament, the key committees of the Upper and Lower Houses play a central role in lawmaking, and in the judiciary the Office of the Union Attorney General has a role in legislative matters. Other union-level committees will also play a significant part in land governance, as will major urban development councils and quasi-governmental organs such as think tanks and party committees. Each of these offices is described in this land governance stakeholder analysis.

This analysis focuses more broadly on governance structures, delegated authority, and specific roles in relation to land governance in Burma. The report covers some structures, such as union-level branches of government and leadership offices of key ministries, broadly, and covers other structures, such as GAD, MoALI’s Department of Agricultural Land Management and Statistics (DoALMS), and committees governing the return and reallocation of land, in greater depth. While the structures and the related processes are complicated, and may entail a number of challenges for the government, it is likely that the new administration will use many of the existing land administration structures to the maximum extent feasible in order to roll out land governance reform programs early in its tenure, while studying shortcomings, monitoring these offices, and recommending structural revisions.

TGCC, or the Land Tenure Project (LTP), as it is known in Burma, has been providing targeted legal assistance to the development of a National Land Use Policy (NLUP) and associated laws while also piloting recognition of community rights to land and resources in two pilot sites (Yway Gone Village Tract in Minhla Township in Bago Division and Let Maung Kway Village Tract in Nyaung Shwe Township in southern Shan State).

Local authorities engaged in land governance are key to connecting NLUP principles to local-level work. Local land governance at the regional, district, township, and village tract levels is complex and the capacity of local authorities to implement the NLUP is not well understood or documented. To fill these gaps in understanding, TGCC commissioned a legal and technical capacity assessment to inform key actions needed to strengthen local land governance at the village tract, township and, where relevant, regional levels. The assessment focuses on two main themes:

• Understanding of the NLUP (How does the NLUP translate to the local level? How do local authorities understand the legal and operational context of the NLUP? What are key capacity gaps to be filled for local authorities to successfully implement the NLUP?) and,
• Roles and responsibilities for implementation of the NLUP (How do local authorities understand their roles in the participatory engagement processes undertaken at TGCC pilot sites? How can outputs of participatory mapping activities inform local authorities’ work? This may include applications for land use planning, land use management, disaster risk reduction, responsible investment, land administration, recognition of customary tenure claims).

This assessment is meant to increase understanding of local authorities’ knowledge of, attitudes towards, and capacities to implement different components of the NLUP, while also identifying key points of engagement between local authorities, civil society organizations (CSOs), and communities on land themes. These findings will inform the design of a capacity building plan to support local authorities in implementing the components of the NLUP; the plan will serve as the basis for LTP’s continued engagement in these pilot areas going forward.

Generally, beyond the township heads of departments, there is a low level of awareness of the NLUP through the lower levels of government administration. Those who know about it think highly of it, as evidenced by the authorities’ praise for the policy’s stronger recognition of elements such as customary tenure and gender equality. A common view is that the NLUP currently has no “teeth,” so a consistent message is that the policy needs to be translated into law and awareness needs to be raised throughout all levels of government.

The link between different aspects of land tenure governance and the NLUP is, not surprisingly, strongest in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation (MONREC). The three forest officials interviewed cited it when speaking about participatory land use planning as a way to strengthen land tenure security for communities, which they view as a weak priority relative to land for investments. They pointed to a need to do long-term national planning in the allocation of land for different purposes: livelihoods, investments, and conservation. Through this approach, they believe customary tenure can be protected while promoting other equally important national objectives. In the meantime, they promote community forestry as a good example of participatory land-use planning, and a way to protect community land tenure. Communities, in turn, see the LTP maps, which delineate land use categories, as a way to help them plan for engagement with community forestry, as well as a tool to strengthen their claims to land that they have customarily used.

Despite the lack of active application of the NLUP, the assessment found several themes in local land governance which relate to different themes in the NLUP linked to land use planning and administration. Representatives of different departments called for more detailed and accurate land uses on the ground, including correcting land use boundaries between land administrated by Department of Agricultural Land Management and Statistics (DoALMS) and the Forest Department (FD); updating agricultural information in the kwin maps; assessing actual use of land in land concessions as a way to increase the efficient use of land through the country – a priority of the current government; and, standardizing mapping scales and procedures throughout the government to reduce administrative inefficiencies and errors. Many of these administrative gaps have been improving in recent years, as a result of more interministerial committees coordinating on land issues, as well as the increased use of technology. Despite this, most departments still fall short in human resources, skills, and equipment. All township authorities interviewed expressed an interest in receiving support from LTP for addressing each of these gaps, and a willingness to increase outreach to communities.

On the communities’ side, while community members from the project’s first two pilot sites appreciate the maps and have gained a degree of empowerment from them, most people still feel there is a large gap between what the project has achieved and their wish to have concrete tools for reclaiming (Yway Gone Village Tract) or securing (Let Maung Kway Village Tract) their land. There are several structural issues which continue to disadvantage communities. The legal framework prioritizes investments, while providing few legal channels to secure community land tenure, except for Community Forestry Instructions (CFI) and the Vacant, Fallow and Virgin (VFV) Land Law. Furthermore, most communities have little to no awareness of the legal instruments to secure their tenure—what they are and how to engage with them—nor the financial resources to do so. With the village tract administrator (VTA) being the main point of contact for all villages, on the whole there is still very little information sharing and extension by local government. Despite this, there is a greater openness with regards to transparency of information. Very tellingly, the assessment team was able to directly ask the State DoALMS Officer about the status of the land concessions and the legal options for villagers to access these lands should they be returned to the state pool. This kind of conversation would have been unheard of a few years ago.

In the implementation of local land governance, it has been recognized that VTAs are central brokers between villagers and local government. Ever since the elections of VTAs under the Thein Sein government, they have generally exhibited more accountability to the rural communities they represent. For example, the VTA in Yway Gone Village Tract has actively been championing the needs of his villages to the township authorities. The fact that they now meet with the township General Administration Department (GAD) on a monthly or bi-weekly basis signals the beginning of stronger community-government relations. While this is a positive development, they themselves require more awareness raising to carry out their jobs. Evident of this is that the VTA in Let Maung Kway Village Tract asked whether he could apply for land use certificates (LUCs, or Form 7s) to secure their taungya land which is located in reserve forest. This demonstrates how far local land governance structures have to go before we can see the appearance of strong administration.

Despite the continuing challenges, there are a number of political factors that have changed the project’s operating environment. These factors include: a) the central government’s wish to reclaim unused land leased to investors; b) the awareness among reform-minded authorities of the value of a bottom-up approach to land use planning and the need to prioritize it for community wellbeing; c) the explicit need among local government for human resources and technological upgrading; and, d) the explicit need among communities for concrete tools to reclaim or secure their community lands. Together, these factors create an opportunity for LTP to build on its achievements of the last two years, and to leave its pilot sites with more concrete outcomes for strengthening community land tenure.

The key points emerging from the land use and tenure assessment in Yway Gone Village Tract include:

1. There is very poor infrastructure provision (roads, electricity, irrigation) in all four villages. The village with the best road access (Bant Bway Gone) is considered the most affluent village among the four.
2. All four villages have long settlement histories ranging from 100 to 200 years. Three of the four villages are completely Bamar while the Kayin village has had a recent influx of landless Bamar families interested in better access to reserve forests. In general, there is no significant pattern of seasonal outmigration although a few families engage in such activities. As access to forests is curtailed, however, the poorer households will start to consider such exit options.
3. The land market is not particularly dynamic with limited growth in prices in recent years.
4. There is a significant level of landlessness especially among the three Bamar villages. This is a typical pattern for Bago Region.
5. All villages with pre-existing kwin maps for paddy lands have already obtained their land use certificates (LUCs). This was carried out smoothly through the initiative of the village tract administrator who submitted the Form 7 applications for families with paddy land on a collective basis. The 500 kyat fee per application was consistent across all villages, and the processing period was roughly six months. In all cases, the LUCs did not include garden lands. Garden lands can only be identified on the basis of tax receipts paid annually to the Department of Agricultural Land Management and Statistics (DoALMS). Tax on paddy land is very low ranging from one to two kyats per acre; this rate has been unchanged since British colonial times.
6. Villagers are not aware, except on the basis of landmarks, about the boundary demarcations of their villages or the village tract boundary. They assume that DoALMS has a record of the village tract boundaries as well as paddy land boundaries. There are no significant conflicts between villagers over paddy land boundaries, or between villages.
7. There is a very low level of awareness and knowledge of lands pertaining to land and forest rights. As such, most villagers were unaware of the existence of the 2012 Farmland Law, 2012 Vacant, Fallow and Virgin Lands Management (VFVLM) Law, 2012 Association Law, or the draft National Land Use Policy. The male heads of households knew the contents of their LUCs but women had seldom seen these certificates.
8. There is limited formal collaboration between the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation (MONREC) and DoALMS in the allocation and management of lands (reserve forests or unclassified forests). With the roll-out of the community forestry in 2017, such collaborations will likely begin.
9. The common problem facing all four villages is the allocation of forestlands (reserve or unclassified) to contractors through plantation permits. In all cases, this was carried out with no consultation or compensation for villagers. Villagers were also not offered the opportunity to apply for such 30-year permits. The impact on household subsistence practices, while diverse in nature depending on the level of secure rights to paddy land, were experienced by all households. In one village, it was estimated that household income dropped by one-third among landed households and by two-thirds in landless households. Women, in particular, have been negatively impacted because they utilize forestlands to grow cash crops that support household expenditures. There remains, however, a poor understanding of the multiple ways in which villagers rely on forestlands to meet the range of household needs over an annual cycle as well as impact on household income.
10. There is weak knowledge about the condition of the forests. Large-scale deforestation occurred from the late 1980s onwards. Since then, various cycles of greening forests have taken place but a detailed understanding of the forests near villages remains poor.
11. There is substantial interest among both male and female villagers in developing commercial opportunities both in agricultural and forest sectors. Some women in specific villages have established rotating savings-and-loans programs. Once LUCs are obtained, it is fairly easy to secure bank loans.
12. There has been no experience with land use planning in any villages or among the government agencies.

In 2016, the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Land Tenure Project (LTP) in Burma undertook an assessment of the gender dimensions of land use and tenure in Yway Gone Village Tract, Minhla Township, the first of the project’s three pilot sites. This assessment serves as a companion document to an overall land use and tenure assessment completed at the same site in 2015, and is intended to inform continued programming.

The key points emerging from the gender assessment of Yway Gone Village Tract are as follows:

1. Women and men work on agriculture together, although men more often take the primary role in certain agricultural tasks, such as plowing and clearing land, while women more often take the primary role in household work, cooking, and child care. Many respondents pointed to this gendered division of labor as a factor that contributes to women having less decision-making power within the household on land-related matters.
2. Some residents of each of the four villages in the village tract have a Land Use Certificate (LUC, or Form 7) for their agricultural paddy land. Almost all Form 7s within the village tract are in the name of the male head of household. While a woman’s name can be on the document, it is usually not, unless it is a woman-headed household. A few women-headed households have Form 7s in their names. A woman whose name is not on the Form 7 cannot directly access the benefits of having the form, including agricultural credit, even if her husband is away for a long period of time or disabled. Women within the village tract only recently discovered that it was possible to change the Form 7 to be in a woman’s name if her husband passes away.
3. Different respondents had different definitions of what constitutes a woman-headed household. Respondents reported that women-headed households use land in many of the same ways as men-headed households, but that women-headed households have a harder time cultivating as much land because they need assistance in some of the physical labor. Women who head households are reported as having more decision-making power over land than their counterparts in men-headed households.
4. There is a high rate of landlessness within this village tract, particularly in San Gyi, Bant Bway Gone, and Yway Gone villages, where most of the residents do not have any access to cultivate agricultural land or taungya land. Respondents thought that women-headed households are more likely to be landless than male-headed households, as women-headed households tend to have access to less labor for cultivation.
5. Practices around inheritance and division of land in case of separation, divorce, or abandonment are unclear and seem to be handled according to unwritten principles within the community. Based on the number of potential situations that the village leaders have never encountered and the lack of consistent responses, these seem to be taken on a case-by-case basis.
6. Land concessions in which the government has granted long-term use rights to agribusiness operations have negatively affected both women and men within these communities, but in different ways. While loss of available taungya land for cultivation and pasture land for grazing has adversely impacted all members of the households, the loss of forestland seems to have hit women particularly hard since they tend to be primarily responsible for firewood collection and foraging for non-timber forest products (NTFPs).
7. Women’s participation in decision-making varies at the household level. While respondents said that men and women usually make decisions together, they also said that many decisions, particularly around land and agriculture, are ultimately taken by the man.
8. Residents of this village tract rely heavily on their village leaders to solve disputes within the community and to liaise with government departments and officials. All of the village leaders within this village tract are men. While most agreed that it would be in principle a positive development for women to be more involved in community decision-making, respondents had mixed opinions on the feasibility of achieving increased women’s participation in practice.
9. Control over money in the household varied, but was more commonly held by men. Men are also more likely to have access to credit. Villagers also reported difficulties in accessing agricultural inputs, any sorts of training, reliable sources of drinking water, transportation, health services, and, in the case of Heingyu, education.

In 2016, the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Land Tenure Project (LTP) in Burma undertook an assessment of the gender dimensions of land use and tenure in Let Maung Kway Village Tract, Nyaung Shwe Township, the second of the project’s three pilot sites. This assessment serves as a companion document to an overall land use and tenure assessment completed at the same site earlier in 2016 and is intended to inform continued programming.

The key points emerging from the Gender Assessment of Let Maung Kway Village Tract are as follows:

1. All land in Let Maung Kway Village Tract is communally held and rights to land are customary. While it seems that the village residents have some formal rights to village settlement land and community forests, they have no formally recognized rights to the lands they use for taungya cultivation, grazing, and foraging outside of their formal community forests. If the communities continue to hold and use these lands without formal recognition, they risk losing this land as others may seek this land for other purposes.
2. Each type of land has different rules of access and use. Rights to use settlement land and taungya land are primarily obtained through inheritance and marriage. Access to forests and grazing lands are based on residency within the village.
3. A few households own individualized holdings of paddy land outside the village tract, near Inle Lake. These families bought these lands a few decades ago.
4. Men and women seem to have equal rights to taungya land as well as paddy land outside the village, but in practice this seems to not always be the case. There are questions of matrilocal/patrilocal practices which determine access and exclusion. Settlement lands are usually inherited by the youngest child or the child that stays within the household to look after their parents.
5. There is a gendered division of labor, with women and men using and accessing land in different ways. Women do agricultural tasks such as planting, weeding, and harvesting; collect firewood; forage in the forests for mushrooms and vegetables; and, do household work, such as cooking, cleaning, tending the vegetable garden, and caring for the children. Men do work such as land development and ploughing, and cutting and transporting wood and bamboo. Men, women, and children graze and care for large animals such as buffaloes, cows, and bullocks. Men earn more than women for agricultural wage work.
6. Men, as heads of households, are the primary decision-makers for major decisions pertaining to all types of land and sale of produce. Women’s participation within decision-making varies at the household level. While respondents said that men and women usually make decisions together, they also said that many decisions, particularly around land and agriculture, are ultimately made by the man. Control over money in the household varied, but was more commonly held by men.
7. Landlessness is generally low in the village tract. Villagers consider landless families to be those who have no access to taungya or paddy land. Landless households were reported to have been settlers in the area, and thus hold no customary rights to taungya land, or to have sold their rights to taungya land (although this is technically impermissible).
8. Landless households can lease or borrow taungya land if they have the labor and resources to use it. Rates are lower for village inhabitants. In Kyaung Nar village, ten outsiders have leased land within the village.
9. Landless women heads of households are less able to access land because they are considered unfit to cultivate land on their own and would need to rely on male relatives or hired labor to do the more physically difficult work on their plots, such as clearing or ploughing.
10. Residents of this village tract rely heavily on their village leaders to liaise with government departments and to solve disputes within the community. All of the village leaders within this village tract are men.
11. Women usually do not conduct land-related business, and are rarely involved in interactions with village heads, village tract administrators, and government officials.
12. Women do not participate in public meetings, nor are they represented in official local or government positions. They would like to be more involved in consultations and see more women holding official positions.
13. Practices around inheritance and division of land in case of separation, divorce, or abandonment are unclear and seem to be handled according to customary family practices within the community, but are taken on a case-by-case basis.
14. Poor communication, access to markets, and water shortages are some of the most commonly reported problems reported by both men and women within the village tract. Water shortages have implications for an increased burden of work for women.
15. Poor infrastructure (bad roads) may also negatively affect women in that it further curtails their mobility and opportunities for participation in community decisions and representation outside the village.

This assessment examines the legal framework associated with customary land tenure and customary land administration in Chipata District of Eastern Province, as well as current practices carried out by traditional leaders, including chiefs, chief advisors, and headpersons. The assessment has been used to inform the design of a customary land certification program, which has the primary goal of testing the hypothesis that households with land documentation will invest in more climate-smart agricultural practices, specifically agroforestry. The program is being carried out from 2014 – 2018 through a randomized control trial including treatments related to land documentation and agroforestry extension. Interventions were carried out at the village level, seeking to include all interested community members. The agroforestry interventions were carried out by an independent organization and there was no communication between the land and agroforestry implementing organizations despite geographic overlap. The findings of the assessment were used to inform the design of the customary land documentation process in Chipata, and will be used as background for other customary land documentation efforts in Zambia.

The Tenure and Global Climate Change (TGCC) task order is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Strengthening Tenure and Resource Rights (STARR) Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity. The aim of the task order is to identify and test models that strengthen resource governance and property rights as they relate to successful climate change programming.

Climate change impacts and interventions in response to climate change are significantly affecting resource tenure governance, the rights of communities and people, and their livelihoods. In turn, resource tenure and property rights issues may strengthen or undermine successful implementation of climate change-related initiatives. Interventions that strengthen resource tenure and property rights governance can help reduce vulnerability and increase resilience, as well as achieve other resource governance objectives, such as wildlife conservation and development of a rural wildlife-based economy. The task order consists of four tasks and contains a grants under contract mechanism to support these task areas. In Zambia, the task order pilots tenure interventions that strengthen land rights as an enabling condition for the promotion and adoption of climate-smart land use practices through work in the Chipata and Petauke Districts of Zambia’s Eastern Province.

In Vietnam, there is growing support for protecting coastal forests and the environment in the context of climate change. The passing of the 2015 Law on Marine and Island Resources and Environment together with the 2016 approval of the Coastal Forests Decree (No. 119/2016/ND) indicate the importance of developing an integrated, multi-sectoral approach to coastal landscape planning and mangrove management. In the context of the Red River Delta, identifying effective coastal spatial planning and mangrove management is particularly important given the significant risks associated with flooding and coastal erosion from the intense typhoon events this area experiences. As climate change takes place, the government is promoting a precautionary approach emphasizing investments in coastal forests, better management and planning, and development of a stronger knowledge base about these coastal forests.

One of the provinces in the Red River Delta, Haiphong municipality, has had significant experience with marine spatial planning at the provincial level in order to proactively address the potential conflicts between infrastructure development, biodiversity conservation, coastal protection, and other important land uses. However, it is recognized that there is a need to develop more localized spatial planning scenarios through the development of a strong knowledge base on resource use, resource users, tenure and governance systems, and conflicts/complementarities between different sets of interest. Such a planning process would need to facilitate the participatory engagement of key local stakeholders in
order for an acceptable and inclusive spatial plan to be implemented.

The planning process is particularly important in the context of competing land uses and the continuing expansion of mangrove forests along much of the Red River Delta coastline. Within Haiphong’s coastline, the most successful experience with planting and protecting mangroves can be found in Tien Lang district in the south. Through the active engagement of mass organizations such as the Women’s Union and Vietnamese Red Cross, the process of raising seedlings and planting has been localized so that success rates have been increased and costs lowered. Together with afforestation, each of the three coastal communes within Tien Lang district have established limited management approaches aimed at preventing mangrove tree cutting and damage. Each commune has established its own distinctive approach relying on either border guards, a limited set of forest protection agreements, or oscillating between these two approaches. It is clear that these approaches do not rely on the broad-base engagement of local community members, nor do they develop an integrated approach to mangrove management that considers the multiple uses and sets of users relying on mangrove ecosystem products.

As such, there is an important opportunity to carry out a pilot in Tien Lang district that develops clearer guidance for the implementation of the Coastal Forests decree for both planning and mangrove management goals. This will involve both carrying out a participatory coastal spatial planning process and developing a more effective system of mangrove management at the commune and inter-commune level. This can be achieved through the establishment of a governance approach that enables multiple stakeholders to collaboratively develop an understanding of natural resource access, use, management, exclusion, and benefit-sharing arrangements and its effect on resource conditions. Such a spatial planning and mangrove co-management approach can promote stronger involvement by women and marginalized groups to ensure that a wide range of users and their needs are addressed.

There is significant interest among Tien Lang’s district and commune leaders, mass organizations as well as community members in developing a participatory coastal spatial planning process that addresses commune-level and inter-commune needs. This can then form the basis upon which a mangrove co-management approach can be designed that can effectively support the development of rules for using the common mangrove resources in the coastal landscape. Such a co-management approach can draw upon diverse lessons from other mangrove co-management pilots developed for addressing disaster risk reduction, coastal protection, and biodiversity conservation along Vietnam’s coastline.

This analysis first describes the capacity-building context for Members of Parliament (MPs) in Burma serving in the land and agriculture sector, and the setting in which they find themselves as the second year of the National League for Democracy (NLD)-led government gets underway. The analysis explores the capacity development needs these MPs face, considering their extremely limited resources and the great deal of legislative work ahead, especially in the land sector. With these gaps in mind, the analysis suggests several purposes or goals in addressing those needs through a training program on the policy grounding for an improved legal framework for land governance. The report identifies the five areas of greatest need for MP capacity training, and suggests a basis for these trainings in research and policy grounding. Suggested trainings would address:

• The new Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation (MoALI) agriculture policy and strategy, based on the National Land Use Policy;
• The need to amend two key land laws, the Farmland Law and the Vacant, Fallow and Virgin (VFV) Land Management Law;
• Customary tenure dynamics, and recognition and protection measures for customary tenure;
• Responsible land-based investment; and,
• The establishment of a National Land Policy Council or Land Commission.

The natural environment provides important environmental services to local, regional, national and international stakeholders, such as erosion control and pollination to neighboring stakeholders, to carbon sequestration benefits to the global community. These services include goods (e.g. physical products), services (erosion control, water purification), and cultural benefits. Yet traditionally, the owners or managers of these habitats have had few ways to benefit economically from the services provided to broader beneficiaries. Payment for environmental service (PES) mechanisms have been proposed as an efficient way to incentivize those with management or ownership rights to manage land for these wider benefits to human welfare.

Vietnam has been a global leader in piloting PES, particularly in upland forests through user fees associated with hydropower and tourism. Yet these experiences have not trickled down to PES in coastal areas and mangrove forests, which provide numerous environmental benefits. This report provides an analysis of some of the barriers to PES in mangrove forests, and key issues to address in the design of a coastal mangrove PES scheme. The assessment recognizes that the Government of Vietnam (GVN) is interested in expanding PES to coastal systems and that there are upcoming investments, for example from the World Bank, KFW, and future U.S. Agency for International Development programs, and policies, for example the revised Forest Law and Coastal Forest Decree, that may promote further piloting of PES.

1.1 METHODS
This assessment is informed by the academic and grey literature on PES in Vietnam and globally, as well as translated Vietnamese policy and legislation. A one week assessment was carried out in Haiphong Province, primarily in Tien Lang District and Cat Ba Island, to consider the local context around PES opportunities. Interviews were carried out with commune, district, and provincial government, as well as with a limited number of private sector and civil society organization actors.

The assessment follows a standard PES framework by examining the characteristics of:

• Mangroves in coastal areas and their relationship to environmental services;
• Potential “buyers” of the services; and,
• Potential “sellers” of the services.

Throughout these descriptions, the assessment considers the transaction challenges and opportunities related to:

• Monitoring of the services for purposes of conditionality;
• Valuation, costs and the willingness of buyers and sellers;
• Collecting revenue; and,
• Distributing payments.

Legal and policy conditions are not addressed in detail, as these considerations are best developed in coordination with an expert on Vietnamese environmental and finance law, which was not available as part of this assessment. Recommendations are provided in bold throughout.

Recommendation: Further interviews and ground truthing with private sector actors across the region are necessary; further discussion with national government representatives to test the findings of this report is also needed.

1.2 BACKGROUND TO PES AND MANGROVE PES
PES was initially defined as a 1) voluntary transactions where 2) a well-defined environmental service (ES) is 3) being “bought” by a minimum of one ES buyer 4) from a minimum of one ES provider, 5) if and only if the ES provider secures ES provision (conditionality) (Wunder, 2007). Other definitions have focused on the concepts of conditionality and the use of positive incentives to promote environmental service delivery, recognizing that PES schemes are rarely voluntary transactions, with well-defined services and clear buyers and sellers (Sommerville, Jones, & Milner-Gulland, 2009; Wunder, 2015). In practice, few PES schemes that meet all of the above criteria are embedded within existing national or local frameworks that assign partial rights to land holders, and require government to create new institutions and markets (Vatn, 2010). Implied in the concept behind a functioning PES is that the positive incentives from engagement should outweigh the costs of lost opportunities for the service providers. PES was initially proposed as a simple, efficient approach because it stressed a direct transaction between buyers and sellers with clear monitoring provisions. However, as new institutions are created to receive and distribute payments, the transaction costs increase and the direct relationships between buyer and seller are easily lost.

Despite this theory and early excitement around the concept, PES schemes are relatively rare globally, though Vietnam has been a leader in piloting Payments for Forest Environmental Services (PFES). In 2010, Vietnam adopted a countrywide PES decree to scale up activities from early models in the Lam Dong and Son La, both upland forest areas, around service provision and also building on the Vietnam Forestry Development Strategy 2006-2020 and previous approaches to incentivize forest restoration. To date, Vietnam’s PFES has been primarily focused on contract approaches in upland areas and purchasing models have focused on direct government support and watershed protection associated with hydropower and tourism to a lesser extent. Vietnamese PES models have applied an approach where land is contracted to individual households or groups of households, but with restrictions on use, and payments have been provided based on both forest protection and forest establishment/planting (with planting receiving a higher value).

The key points emerging from the land use and tenure assessment in Let Maung Kway Village Tract are:

1. There is poor infrastructure provision (roads, electricity, irrigation) in all eight villages, but particularly for the northernmost, smaller villages. The villages with the best road access have the opportunity to engage in bamboo ware craft production for the local markets.
2. All eight villages have long settlement histories from at least 100 years ago. All villages have ethnically Taungyo residents. Over time, nearly 50% of the more remote, northernmost villages have migrated down to the plains area near Inle Lake in search of water for better agricultural production. In general, there is no significant pattern of seasonal outmigration although some engage in off-season work in Kachin state.
3. All land in these villages is on public protected forests under Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation’s (MONREC) jurisdiction. The cultivated land is all taungya land with no paddy lands being cultivated. Hence, this is a rain fed agricultural system with no supplementary water supply. The primary crops are upland rice, ginger, pigeon peas, and canola. A range of vegetables and fruits are grown on taungya land as well as on home garden lands. The crops are sold in local markets.
4. Villagers are clear, based on mutual understanding, about the boundary demarcations of their villages and household plots. They were not very clear about the village tract boundary. There are no significant conflicts between villagers over taungya land boundaries, or between villages.
5. There is a low level of landlessness among all eight villages (less than ten percent). Most landless families were able to create their own land by clearing forests in earlier times.
6. There appears to be a process of de-gazettement that was commenced about five months ago by Department of Agricultural Land Management and Statistics (DoALMS) together with MONREC. They came to document the land situation and record cropping arrangements. Only those villages in C group of the village tract (smaller than 50 households) have yet to receive a visit from DoALMS.
7. The land market is not active – the area is presently not of interest to buyers. However, given the development of the tourist economy around Inle Lake and the beautiful valley views afforded from some of these villages, it is only a matter of time before the land market starts to gather steam. At present, some villages (the C group) have some excess land which outsiders use, some for a rental fee.
8. There is a very low level of awareness and knowledge pertaining to land and forest rights. As such, most villagers were unaware of the existence of the 2012 Farmland Law, 2012 Vacant, Virgin, and Vacant Lands Management Law, the 2012 Association Law, or the draft National Land Use Policy.
9. All villages have community forestry areas (20-60 acres). Most were formed under agreement (30-year certificates) with MONREC; some, in the smaller, distant villages, were formed by independent organizations. These areas are used primarily for fuelwood supply. The main purpose of these community forestry areas is to support overall improvement in forest cover and condition in the Inle Lake catchment as a result of the substantial siltation problem it faces.
10. Presently, each household makes its own cropping decisions; there is no coordination by village leaders or any land use planning committee. There has been no experience with land use planning in any villages or among the government agencies.