Developing Nypa Palm community-based management mechanism in Tich Tay Village, Tam Nghia Commune, Nui Thanh District, Quang Nam Province

Objectives

The project aimed to develop a community based management mechanism to effectively manage 30 hectares of Nypa palm in Tich Tay Village, Tam Nghia Commune, Nui Thanh District, Quang Nam. 

Background

In Tich Tay Village, Tam Nghia Commune, Nui Thanh District, Quang Nam Province, Nypa Palm covered 30 ha. 360 households resided here, whose livelihoods were mainly animal husbandry, fishing and aquaculture. The local community established a community-based management mechanism under their own initiative to allocate and manage the Nypa Palm between seven local households, who cut Nypa leaves to make and sell Nypa patches for house roofing in the village. Each year, these households paid a small fee (from US$ 2.50 to US$12.50) to the village, depending on the size of the allocated plots (either small or large plots without exact measurement units). While the demand for Nypa patches increased, there were no regulations in place to control the harvest of Nypa Palm . Therefore, over exploitation, leading to habitat degradation and deforestation, became a serious threat. 

While Nypa Palm gradually disappeared in other provinces, since coastal forests were converted to shrimp ponds and other uses, Tich Tay Village was able to conserve 30 ha of its Nypa Palm forest, hence there was a strong need to protect the current area and expand it further.

Target beneficiaries

360 households of Tich Tay Village. 

Outputs

• Establishment of a community group for managing Nypa Palm in Tich Tay village.

• Formulation of management regulations for managing the 30 ha of Nypa Palm and have it adopted by the CPC.

• Awareness raised of the community in Tich Tay Village on the importance of Nypa Palm and methods of restoring and managing Nypa Palm habitat through trainings and the village's knowledge competition.

• Increase awareness of regulations by broadcasting the regulation on the village's radio system.

Accomplishments and challenges

• The setting up of a community-based management board empowered the community group to protect the Nypa habitat. This board was given the right to give permission to local households to harvest Nypa leaves and the responsibility to monitor harvesting activities. A regulation on sustainable management and harvest of Nypa Palm leaves had been formulated. The frequency of Nypa leaf harvest was reduced from every 2 months to every 6 months. Instead of harvesting all the usable leaves before, local households left at least 3 palm fronds to ensure the recovery of the Nypa Palm trees.

• Although this was the smallest project among nine SGF projects, it helped to improve people's awareness on the importance of Nypa Palm through various communication activities. In addition to this, knowledge was shared by a local person of Cam Thanh, where the local community benefited from Nypa Palm conservation through providing tourism services in Nypa forest areas. This community also made high quality Nypa patches which were sold at a much higher price than in Tich TayVillage.

• The adopted regulation was disseminated to the local community through 12 broadcasts on the village's radio system. Local people were informed of the regulation and responded with questions for clarification about their responsibilities of complying with it as well as their rights to harvest Nypa resources.

• Instead of allocating Nypa stewardship rights to 7 households, other local households participated in the monitoring of Nypa resource exploitation activities and had an equal chance to request Nypa allocation on a rotational basis.

Contributions to cross-cutting themes

- Communications

Lessons Learned

• Although the community initiated their own management mechanism, they lacked knowledge on Nypa Palm conservation and did not know they were over harvesting Nypa Palm leaves. The adoption of the regulations not only created a legal basis but also guided the community to harvest Nypa Palm resources in a more sustainable manner. Awareness raising activities and the operation of the community-based management board should have been maintained to effectively enforce the regulations.

• While demand and  price of Nypa patches increased, there were potential user conflicts if only 7 households received access to the Nypa area. Equitable Nypa Palm allocation among local households helped to reduce the conflicts.

• To enhance the economic value derived from Nypa Palm, the project cooperated with MG to hold trainings for women to make handicrafts. MG is a project partner that provided technical support for souvenir production to the women's cooperative located in the buffer zone of XTNP. However, MG continued searching for feasible products to construct out of Nypa Palm. There has been research on producing wine and sugar from Nypa Palm, but the quality was not as good as expected. This process will take more time and require investment in technology in order to produce a new product.

• To sustain the project's results, more research on efficient and sustainable use of Nypa Palm resources should have been conducted to encourage its conservation and protection. Other suggested options included organizing vocational trainings for local people and diversifying aquaculture models under the forest canopy.