Forestland allocation (FLA) policy in Vietnam aimed at conserving forests and improving local livelihoods.In regard to the effectiveness of FLA, some authors reported improvements in forest cover and quality, whereas others stated inappropriate implementation process and minor impacts on household income. Hence, this study examined whether disturbances in initial stage still existed, how allocated forestlands were utilized, and how FLA contributed to local livelihoods under different forest management regimes. D village of Nam Dong district, where FLA was introduced in 1995, was selected as a case, and 78 households were randomly selected for household interviews. The results revealed that shifting cultivation, once widely reported in mountainous regions, had already ceased before our survey. Natural forests allocated to groups were mainly utilized for non-wood forest product (NWFP) collection, regardless of whether those users had an allocation. Individually allocated areas were converted to acacia and recently to rubber plantations. The rotation of acacia plantation was five to seven years with intercropping cassava in the initial stage. FLA contributed to adjusting an uneven distribution of farmland and income, but the effect remained nominal. The role of FLA in income generation was limited due to small allocation area per household (1.50 ha on average). Switching to rubber trend was another reason of limited income derived from FLA. Therefore NWFP played a more significant role in the household economy than plantation yields. Investment in livestock was first preference of respondents, which suggests the importance of small-scale livestock rearing in the areas facing land shortage.

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REDD+ is an approach to reduce deforestation and forest degradation, using economic incentives to influence behavior. The need for safeguards has emerged to avoid the negative social and environmental impacts caused by an overemphasis of such economic incentives. In the context of safeguards, in addition to the UNFCCC's official efforts, voluntary activities (initiatives) by many organizations have attempted to formulate principles, criteria, indicators and guidelines. In this article, we clarified the elements to enhance social safeguards and discussed how those elements are included in each initiative. We reviewed the literature on the SEPC, SESA and REDD+ SES initiatives, and clarified the focal points and problems relating to social safeguards. We found that benefit-sharing is an important aspect of social safeguards, and that more discussions are needed to enhance initiatives. The REDD+ SES initiative has received little criticism in literature to date and has the best-covered elements including "benefit-sharing" among the three initiatives. If more countries adopt REDD+ SES and more cases can be accumulated to identify problems and solutions, it could become a popular initiative in the international community to enhance the social safeguards in REDD+.

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