The Discourse of Forest Cover in Vietnam and Its Policy Implications

Thi Kim Phung Dang ()
Additional contact information
Thi Kim Phung Dang: Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City 72900, Vietnam

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 17, 1-20

Abstract: As the world’s largest ecosystem, forests affect the location, layout, and functionality of human populations worldwide. Despite environmental efforts, forests are being taken down. As socioeconomic issues promote deforestation, sustainable development is a worldwide answer. However, there is still a shortage of information about the manifestation and interconnection of sustainability aspects in a country’s forestry and their impact on policy making in developing nations. To address this knowledge gap, this study analyzes the preeminent discourse of forest cover in Vietnam forestry and determines how well it incorporates the three pillars of sustainable development. The various pieces of pertinent material (forestry regulations, reports, articles, statements by government officials and National Assembly representatives in the media, etc.) were analyzed using discourse analysis and thematic analysis. Overall, the findings show that the discourse has evolved through four themes: intercropped supporting trees, multi-purposed trees, replacing afforestation and change from forest cover to tree cover. These themes all exclude ecosystems that must exist beneath forest cover, which is frequently disrupted by the clear cut of fast-growing trees and industrial crops. The institutionalization of the discourse is facilitating legal deforestation by converting natural forest into other land uses, in particular infrastructure with replacing afforestation. The economic coalition, which strategically includes livelihood and social development in their storylines to legitimize forest conversion to other land uses, is winning the discursive struggle for hegemony. The paper concludes with some recommendations to improve Vietnam’s forestry policy, making for long-term sustainable development.

Keywords: forestry discourses; discourse analysis; forest cover; multi-purpose tree; replacing afforestation; Vietnam (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/17/10976/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/17/10976/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:17:p:10976-:d:905097

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().