Study title

Mangrove forests are known to provide many ecological services and sources of livelihood to local community. The policy of contracting mangrove forest to households for management fails to conserve as farmers tend to convert mangrove to other uses. We proposed the following research objectives: [1] examine the impacts of devolution policy and other institutional measures on mangrove forest areas at commune level; [2] examine the impacts of devolution policies, institutional and economic factors on the mangrove coverage of mixed shrimp-mangrove systems. Mangrove forest indicators of analyses at both household and commune level in the South Vietnam are measured in two aforementioned ways. One is self-reported, by farm managers in household data and by Forestry Management in commune data, and the other is calculated using satellite images. We planned to collect 5-year (2011-2016) data from 110 communes for this project. Out of the 100 communes, we have been able to collect data for 83 communes in 4 provinces, including Trà Vinh, Bạc Liêu, Kiên Giang and Cà Mau.