Co-management in Cu Lao Dung (5th negotiation meeting)

Time: 9:00 – 11:00                  Date: 27.03.2012
Place: An Thanh Nam Commune People’s Committee, Cu Lao Dung District

The meeting started with a review of the last discussion. Last week it was discussed what resources are being collected as well as how and when they are collected in the co-management mangrove forest of Vo Thanh Van village. The main task of this meeting was to identify the future zones of the mangrove forest in the co-management area.

Firstly, people were encouraged to get familiar with the map and to identify where the co-management group members are living, the borders of the two sub-groups and some main features such as central road, channels, sluice gates, submerged drains. Five pathways were identified, which are often used by local people to go to the forest (Xẻo Đầu Sỏ channel (small channel at the border to An Thanh 3 commune), Năm Khải submerged drain (cống ngầm dưới đê), Ba Đời submerged drain, sluice gate 4 and sluice gate 5). As shown on the map below, the co-management group does not yet cover the western part of Vo Thanh Van village as well as the longan gardens and the shrimp ponds in the south-west. The reason given was because in this part, mostly people here do inland farming and their livelihoods do not depend much on the forest and the coast. However, these people will be invited when co-management regulations will be presented in order to make sure that they are informed as well.

Then the concept of zonation, the functions of the different zones, especially why we need the protection zone (to allow nature to regenerate without any disturbance from human intervention) were explained. The negotiation to identify the protection zone was quite dynamic. In the end, it was agreed that the protection zone would be in the area between sluice gate 4 and Ba Đời submerged drain. This protection zone is located in the middle of two sustainable use zones, one on the North and the other on the South (see map below). Concepts of rehabilitation zones inside and outside of the forest were also clarified with examples from Mo O and Au Tho B. In the case of Vo Thanh Van village, no plantings are being carried out inside of the forest as the forest is quite dense here. Thus, it was agreed that there would be only one rehabilitation zone outside of the forest along the edge of the forest with 100 m width (50 m toward the forest and 50 m toward the sea).

Draft map of the newly developed zones for Vo Thanh Van co-management area