From the ground up: Supporting community-driven climate resilience in Viet Nam’s forests

Phong village, a mountainous forest-fringed settlement, is nestled at the buffer zone area of Pu Mat National Park in Nghe An province, Viet Nam. It is home to roughly 700 residents, most of whom are from the Tay Poong ethnic group. Close to 90 per cent of the village, which spans around 7,000 hectares, is covered in natural forest.

Along with the larger Tam Hop commune in which it is located, Phong village is considered one of Viet Nam's more socio-economically disadvantaged areas. Over half of its households are officially classified as poor. The increasingly fragile economic backbone of the community is built on agriculture and forest-based livelihoods.

Degraded soils, steep terrain and erratic weather patterns make farming uncertain and labour intensive here. The challenge is compounded by outmigration as most men of working age have migrated. Those who remain are seasonal migrants seeking factory or construction work in nearby towns and cities. It is mainly women, elders and children who sustain the land, homes and communal life.

In March 2025, an Explore grant monitoring team visited the village. A team from Vinh University, which lies 190-kilometres northeast of the village, is conducting research here. The grant monitoring team included research team members, RECOFTC and CIFOR-ICRAF staff, officials from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and representatives of local women's unions.

Participatory research in action

Ho Thi Phuong, a lecturer at Vinh University, leads a multi-country research team investigating the intersections of gender, climate change and forest landscape governance in forest-dependent communities in Lao PDR, Myanmar and Viet Nam.

In Viet Nam, the research sites are Tam Hop commune (including Phong village) and Tam Thai commune, both in Nghe An province. Phuong's team have used household surveys, in-depth interviews and community consultations to assess household resilience and identify disparities by gender, ethnicity and geography in their study area. The team co-developed practical solutions to strengthen livelihoods and promote inclusive forest governance. Applying a household livelihood resilience (HLR) index – a tool that assesses a household's ability to anticipate, respond to and recover from climate-related shocks, the team revealed a shared challenge.

Both Tom Hap and Tam Thai have an average HLR of 0.434, indicating low resilience. Of the five capitals the index considers – human, physical, financial, social and natural – financial capital was found to be the weakest. This was due to limited income and savings in the two communes. Physical capital scored highest, reflecting recent infrastructure investments.

Livelihood models for resilience

The research team are piloting the cultivation of white basil (Ocimum gratissimum) in Tom Hap. White basil is a medicinal plant that is resilient to heat and drought. Given its value in the traditional medicine market, it could help households, especially women, generate income. Additionally, white basil plantations could restore soil health and reduce erosion. 

In Phong, there are two proposed sites for cultivating white basil – a one-hectare nursery and a 10-hectare planting area. The nursery reuses the campus of a former school within the village, while the planting area is located on reclaimed land from a former slash-and-burn field, situated on a steep hillside north of the village. 
 

In Tam Thai, the focus is on raising pigs for reproduction, managed through women’s cooperative groups and supported by a revolving loan fund. The model builds local capacity, offers more secure income and empowers women to lead in economic recovery and risk reduction.

Both initiatives operate under a four-party cooperation model involving local authorities, researchers, private enterprises and farmers, designed to ensure shared ownership and long-term sustainability.

From university halls to mountain villages

These research findings and the proposed livelihood models were at the centre of a half-day workshop held at the Vinh University campus in Vinh City on 14 March 2025. The event brought together community members; commune, district and provincial officials; women’s union representatives; researchers and university leadership from Vinh university; development partners and media persons.

Phuong’s team presented their findings and the pilot livelihood models being implemented in the two communities. The team is one of seven multi-country, multi-disciplinary research groups, each awarded a competitive grant of up to USD 190,000 through Explore in 2022 for research on forest landscape governance.

At the event, community members participating in the livelihood models spoke positively about the project’s participatory design and its attention to context-specific challenges. Several emphasized how women’s leadership in both communes has grown as a result.

Learning across landscapes

Le Thanh An, lecturer at the University of Economics, Hue University and principal investigator of another Explore-supported research team was present at both the workshop and the field visit. His team, based in central and southern Viet Nam, is investigating the forest dependence of communities surrounding national parks in Cambodia, Lao PDR and Viet Nam.

“Our communities benefit from tourism and conservation-linked income streams,” he notes. “But in Tam Hop, people have fewer economic options.” His observation underscores the diverse contexts in which forest-dependent communities live and the shared value of collaborative, community-driven research.

For Hao Zhuang, programme manager of Explore, the workshops and field visits offer more than just project oversight. The field visits, particularly, provide opportunities to observe participatory research in action and foster learning between teams. “These monitoring visits allow us to see how Explore’s support translates into action on the ground and how participatory action research truly unfolds in real time.”

“In-country field engagements also provide space for mentoring,” she adds. These monitoring trips often include members of the Explore Secretariat from RECOFTC and CIFOR-ICRAF, advisory committee members and researchers from other Explore-supported research teams. Travelling together, they exchange insights, reflect on shared challenges, strengthen approaches and learn from the leadership of communities and researchers on the ground.

As forest landscapes continue to change, the work underway in Tam Hop and Tam Thai shows how place-based, community-led research can help shift both practice and policy. Insights from the two livelihood pilots will inform future livelihood diversification efforts led by government agencies in similar forest-dependent contexts.

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Utsav Maden is communication and engagement officer at RECOFTC and Yustina Artati is senior research officer at CIFOR-ICRAF. 

About Explore

Explore is a research network and community of practice dedicated to expanding and applying knowledge on forest landscape governance in Southeast Asia. The network is funded by the government of Sweden. It is hosted by RECOFTC, in partnership with the CIFOR-ICRAF, in collaboration with universities, research institutes, governments, civil society organizations, local communities and the private sector in Southeast Asia.

For more information about Explore, contact [email protected], or visit here .