You Say Illegal, I Say Legal

Vietnam is estimated to have lost more than half of its forest cover in the past 50 years, with a number of contributing causes. The state nationalization of all forest resources during socialist rule from 1954 to the opening of the economy in the 1980s contributed significantly to illegal logging, as any locally-used forest was considered to be national property. During this period, there was a generalized ‘free-for-all’ on the forests, contributing to a massive breakdown of local tenure rules and resource allocation. Despite the dissolution of many of the state-owned logging reserves and distribution of this land to local communities, which began in the late 1980s, deforestation has continued. During the 1990s, an export ban on raw logs from Vietnam was enacted to halt the continued deforestation, with generally ineffective results. While the state continues to blame local people for illegal logging and attendant deforestation, this paper will show that perceived criminal and corrupt actions by the government have significantly contributed to the problem. Furthermore, the paper will explain how local people terms as ‘illegal loggers’ explain their actions in terms of social justice, poverty alleviation, and local control, rather than in the state's terms of ‘illegality’.