Colliding Understandings of Biodiversity Conservation in Vietnam: Global Claims, National Interests, and Local Struggles

ABSTRACT In the course of the last decade, biodiversity conservation has become an important policy device in Vietnam's environmental sector. This article provides a political ecology analysis of the ascent and implementation of biodiversity conservation policy in Vietnam and draws on a case study of Ba Be district, located in Vietnam's northern mountain area. It shows how international conservationists and national counterparts were able to create new policy frameworks and to shape and alter the policy contexts in biodiversity-rich places. The article reveals the frictions among international, national, and local interests in biodiversity resources and points at the limits of strict conservation agendas for socially and environmentally meaningful policy outcomes. Only a path toward renegotiation of the current policy context seems able to mitigate further social and environmental pressure.