ABSTRACT
Vietnam’s country framework has improved, with strengthened land acquisition laws and accumulated government experience and capacity. The most recent legislation governing dam resettlement, for example, stipulates more generous terms for compensation, replacement land, food support, housing and infrastructure provision than previously offered. However, it does not cover all losses relating to livelihoods, nor does it provide for any benefit-sharing through revenues generated for the people originally displaced. Programmes for livelihood support in rural areas are foundering. Since enactment in 2010 of a Law on Payment for Environmental Services, dam-displaced rural communities in Vietnam that have been resettled within a river watershed may participate in a nationwide benefit-sharing programme, Payment for Forest Ecosystem Services (PFES) with the twin aims of poverty alleviation and forest conservation. Under the scheme, taxes on dam beneficiaries – hydropower providers, water suppliers and ecotourism providers – help to finance wages for regular forest monitoring and conservation by local farmers. Can the programme help to redress some of the most egregious impacts of dam displacement in Vietnam, impoverishment and forest loss? This chapter considers whether the PFES programme can serve as a model for dam-forced resettlement elsewhere in Vietnam and in other nations.
