The potential for trickle up : how local actors' experiments influence national forest policy planning

The loss of forests in Vietnam encouraged central government policy makers to consider new ways to manage forest resources. A major forest policy shift -- moving away from state-led management -- began in earnest in pilot provinces in 1998, with the handing over of forest land and management responsibility to communities. The initial outcomes of this switch and the policy learning that took place as a result of experimentation with community forestry are examined. I show that learning from and sharing these experiences contributed to policy-oriented learning and influenced the formulation of new policy. I review how lessons learned from the field (e.g. local experimentation, project learning and bottom-up planning) can redefine national forest policy priorities. I present preliminary lessons from adaptation of methods of forest land allocation, forest protection regulations and community forest management planning. I share experiences from pilot provinces where, with the involvement of policy innovators (local and external), the results led to the development of an enabling legal framework for community forestry, in the new Land Law and Forest Law. This dissertation suggests how learning from experiments can lead to better policy options in developing countries.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Blockhus, Jill M

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Lawrence E. Susskind.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/37673
• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Identifier URI

http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/37673

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37673