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SFB 564: F1.2 - Tenure and economic valuation of common-pool resources in mountainous regions of Thailand and Vietnam
Project
Project code: DFG SFB 564
Contract period: 01.01.2003
- 31.12.2006
Purpose of research: Basic research
The first phase of subproject F1 in Thailand - focusing on general interactions between land, water and forest rights - has shown that control, ownership and use rights of water in the northern Thai uplands are characterized by a high complexity which questions the general conception of water as a public good. Private, communal, state and open access rights are interacting in both complementary and conflicting ways. This ‘legal pluralism’ has important implications for technical aspects of water management (water conveyance systems, water-saving irrigation, water-harvesting technologies) to be studied in subprojects B1.2 (Water conservation) and B3.1 Improved fertigation). Water use for increasing productivity in agriculture and for sustaining farmers’ incomes and food security is competing with the demands of the non-farm sector (e.g., industry, tourism) and of consumers concerned about water and food safety. Subproject F1.2 Thailand (Resource tenure and economic valuation) will analyze the interaction between water control, management and use rights of the stakeholder groups and identify use and non-use values of water using various valuation approaches. An important task of the subproject will be to scrutinize into the relative merits of different assessment techniques for resource valuation, namely Contingent Valuation, Attribute Based Choice Modeling and Participative Valuation Methods. It is hypothesized that the valuation of water resources differs between the assessment techniques under consideration and between different stakeholders (e.g. upland farmers, lowland farmers, irrigation department, drinking water company, tourist resorts, consumers) and that this valuation is neither reflected in the real price of water nor in the control and use rights of stakeholders.
Results of the first phase of subproject F1 in Vietnam show a highly sophisticated and indigenously developed pasture management in the Hmong villages. In one village agricultural land and grazing land are located in two different areas divided by forest to prevent the animals from grazing in the fields. In the other village, where a comparatively small territory does not allow such a separation, large ruminants are kept in fenced pastures under a joint management scheme of a group of households. A comparison of costs and benefits of current and improved pasture management systems of the H’mong and Black Thai will be done for the different stakeholders (individual farmer – management group – community). Scenarios of the cost-benefit analysis of improved pastures will be compared with alternative scenarios of converting pastures into cropping land or forest. In close cooperation with subprojects A1.2 (Participatory Research) and C2.2 (Communal grazing lands) and in a participatory approach with local communities, new institutional arrangements for improved pasture management will be developed. A smaller component of subproject F1.2 Vietnam will focus on the analysis of water rights and water management in aquaculture systems investigated by subproject D5.1.
In this subproject, it is foreseen to combine approaches of legal pluralism, political economy and resource economics to take into account the complexity of tenure systems governing common-pool resources, such as water and pastures, and to identify the appropriate mix of ‘rights-based’ and ‘value-based’ policy measures and institutional arrangements.
Section overview
Subjects
- Agroeconomics
Collaborative Project
Funding programme
Excutive institution
Institute of Agricultural Sciences in the Tropics (Hans-Ruthenberg-Institute) (490)
