Participation of Local People in the Payment for Forest Environmental Services Program: A Case Study in Central Vietnam

Abstract

In 2010, Vietnam implemented the payment for forest environmental services (PFES) program that was expected to bring additional income to local people and improve the efficiency of forest protection. However, factors affecting the motivation to participate in PFES have rarely been examined. The objectives of this study were to (1) identify factors that influence local people’s participation in PFES, (2) examine how local people participating in the PFES program were involved in decision-making in the Thua Thien Hue Province, and (3) assess PFES impact on local people. We conducted a field survey of 32 households at the study site. We found no difference in the access to PFES between poor and non-poor households. Participation in PFES was considered a reward for labor work in forests and a means to compensate for the legal rights of participants. Local people could participate at many stages of PFES implementation; however, they were only passive spectators with regards to PFES management. Two-thirds of the participants did not participate in decision-making regarding PFES distribution. We conclude that the efficiency of future PFES programs may be increased by enabling and stimulating the participants to take a more active part in the process of PFES management and distribution.

1. Introduction

Environmental degradation became noticeable in the twentieth century, which led many countries to search for solutions to this problem. The payment for ecosystem services (PES) has been considered an increasingly popular solution in the past 20 years to combat environmental degradation and deforestation [1]. The core idea of PES programs is to link users and providers of ecosystem services by providing economic incentives for the conservation or improvement of natural resources, such as soil, water, and forests, in these regions [2]. PES policies are a combination of market economic incentives and regulations [3,4]. PES programs have recently received substantial consideration in developing countries, particularly in Latin America and Southeast Asia [5]. The effectiveness of PES as a win-win solution to both environmental and social problems remains a subject of ongoing discussions among researchers [6,7].

Evaluating the impact of PES on the environment has traditionally focused on assessing the extent of environmental degradation in areas with and without implemented PES schemes. However, there is a growing concern about the impacts of PES on other aspects of socio-economic development, in addition to the goals of conservation. However, studies that focus on factors that drive people’s participation and on the efficacy of PES programs for local livelihood improvement remain limited. Active participation of local people is critical to the success of PES programs [8,9,10,11]. Rawlins and Westby [12] concluded that the successful design of the PES scheme in Caura Valley was based on the community’s active participation in developing the project concept and management framework for PES. Pagiola et al. [2] identified three patterns of PES participation, namely eligibility, access, and desire of PES providers. Among them, eligibility was found to be dependent on the PES target area and resource ownership. For instance, a review of eight PES initiatives in Latin America highlighted that PES programs discriminated against poor smallholders because formal land tenure title was an important requirement to access payments [13]. The desire of local people to participate in PES often depends on whether they can profit from the program. Some studies showed that the contribution of PES to household income influences motivation to be involved in the program [2,9,14]. On the other hand, studies of PES programs in Latin America concluded that programs that were recognized to be equitable motivated the participation of locals [5,15]. Positive participation was also linked to the knowledge about previous environmental management programs and positive attitudes toward those [16]. Additionally, the participation of local people and communities in PES design and decision-making and linking PES to other development programs was considered a successful approach [17,18]. However, Kosoy et al. [19] considered that PES programs often evolved as top-down policies, precluding high participation levels. Corbera et al. [15] also reported that 75% of the interviewed households at four PES project sites in Latin America had never been consulted in the process of implementation.

Vietnam experienced a rapid loss of forests and forest degradation during the 1980s. Consequently, the government’s primary concern in forest management has shifted from the production to the protection and development since the early 1990s. The government has invested in many national programs and projects to increase forest cover and forest quality, such as the Five Million Hectare Reforestation Program (Program 661) or Forest Protection and Sustainable Development Program (Program 327). Although state-owned organizations still play a dominant role in the forest management in Vietnam, communities and individuals have been playing increasingly important roles in sustaining forest resources [20,21,22]. In this context, the payment for forest environmental services (PFES), a form of PES, has been introduced by the government of Vietnam since 2008, and it is considered a potential program for sustainable forest management [23].

In Vietnam, livelihood improvement linked to forest protection and development has been emphasized as a crucial solution in legal documents, policies, and forestry development guidelines. Hence, the PFES policy demonstrates the Vietnamese government’s commitment to forest conservation in the upstream watershed area and improvement of the local livelihoods through payments [23]. It had been critically concluded that the PFES scheme in Vietnam is a top-down approach [24,25]. In this regard, a study by Ngoc et al. [26] proposed that local participation could increase forest conservation effectiveness, and local motivation could be enhanced by expanding the range of payout calculations. Iwanaga et al. [27] pointed out the importance of bottom-up decision-making in achieving conservation. Additionally, Inoue and Shivakoti [16] mentioned that local people who often visit forests and take care of them were expected to have more power over the decision-making process.

Although PFES is popularly recognized as an important conservation and environmental management policy in Vietnam, there is still a shortage of evidence regarding local people’s participation in the decision-making process and positive impact of this policy on the participants. Therefore, this study aimed to bridge this gap by identifying how local people participate in the PFES policy as forest environmental service providers. The specific objectives were to (1) identify factors that influence local people’s participation in PFES, (2) examine to what extent local people participating in PFES are involved in decision-making, and (3) explore PFES impact on local people (participants).

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Study Site

According to Loft et al. [28], having many layers in PFES implementation may lead to distorted and incomplete information. However, Thua Thien Hue is the only province in Vietnam that provides payments through one intermediating organization. The Thua Thien Hue Province is located on the Central coast of Vietnam. According to the report of the Thua Thien Hue Forest Protection Department (2020), the province had about 288,401 hectares of forest, and the forest cover reached 57.38% in 2020. Thus, this province has one of the highest forest cover rates in Vietnam. The PFES scheme was implemented in the province in the end of 2011 by the establishment of the Thua Thien Hue Forest Protection and Development Fund (TTHFPDF). In 2012 and 2013, the TTHFPDF focused on the organization, operation, and creation of a database for payments. The payment process was officially started in 2014. The TTHFPDF is the only intermediating organization and the first one that promoted various initiatives, such as applying remote sensing technology, and different policies to ensure efficient, transparent, and equitable implementation of PFES. After nine years, the PFES revenue was distributed to 620 forest owners, including state organizations, commune people’s committees, communities, groups of households, and individual households. The forests managed by forest owners reached 153,202 ha, which accounted for 53.10% of the province’s forest area.

The local administrative units in Vietnam are provinces, districts, and communes. Each commune consists of several villages. The A Luoi district is located 60 km west of Hue city, the capital city of the Thua Thien Hue province. Approximately 56,500 people are distributed across one town and 20 communes. We selected the A Luoi district as our study site for the following reasons. First, the A Luoi district is one of the two mountainous districts in the Thua Thien Hue Province, and this district was the first one to implement PFES in 2014. Therefore, we expected that here we could reliably analyze the participation of locals in PFES. Second, the A Luoi District had a forestland area of 91,877.19 ha, corresponding to 75.00% of the district land area in 2019. The natural forest area in the A Luoi District accounted for more than 31.86% of the province’s natural forest area [29]. However, for many years, this district has been a hot spot for illegal logging and forest exploitation. Therefore, we considered that the A Luoi case study could illustrate the participation of local people in decision-making and efficiency of PFES for local livelihood improvement. Figure 1 showed the map of A Luoi district.

2.2. Data Collection and Analysis

At the provincial level, the Thua Thien Hue Forest Protection Department (FPD) and TTHFPDF are responsible for PFES monitoring and evaluation. At the district level, the Division of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD), Division of Natural Resources and Environment (DONRE), and the Forest Protection Unit (FPU) are responsible for supervising the law enforcement of PFES. The Commune People’s Committee (CPC) is responsible for forest protection at the lowest level of local administration. We collected official documents and information on the PFES process through in-depth interviews with the FPD, TTHFPDF, DONRE, DARD, and FPU of the A Luoi District in May 2019.

After the in-depth interviews conducted in 16 communes of the A Luoi district, where PFES was implemented, we found that the Hong Trung commune had the highest forest area and had many forms of forest allocation (

Table 1. Characteristics of sample households.

Wealth Rank	Household Member			Household Head				Labor Force
				Age		Education
Category	N	Av.	SD.	Av.	SD.	Av.	SD.	Av.	SD.
Poor	13	4.32	1.11	40.06	12.08	3.51	1.48	2.64	1.11
Non-Poor	19	4.24	1.11	40.48	12.01	3.45	1.46	2.65	1.09
Total	32	4.28	1.11	40.38	12.02	3.53	1.49	2.66	1.09

Source: Household survey, 2020 (N: Number, Av.: Average, SD.: Standard Deviation).

). Hong Trung commune has four villages. Three villages participated in the PFES program, and one village did not have it. Among the three villages, village Y had 1,300 ha of forestland area; it started participating in the PFES program earlier than the other villages, in 2014, and it had the highest poverty rate (39.2%). The main ethnic group there is Pa ko, and their main source of income comes from labor, acacia plantations, and husbandry. Previous research compared several villages and suggested PFES should be implemented thoroughly and depending on the characteristics of the local communities [30,31]. Therefore, we focused on one village with the expectation that village Y had considerable experience in PFES among its residents. We collected commune and village-level statistics from the CPC of village Y. After the key informants’ interviews, we conducted household interviews with household heads and their spouses, using questionnaires, during April 2020. A supplemental survey was conducted in July 2020. To identify the impact of PFES on local livelihoods, we chose households based on the wealth rank. The poverty criteria identified by the Hong Trung commune corresponded well with the wealth ranking predetermined by the government. We organized a focus group discussion to confirm the poverty criteria in the village. The indicators included monthly income per capita less than 700,000 VND; monthly income per capita from 700,000 to 1,000,000 VND, and areas of agricultural land, forestland, and residential areas below 0.5 ha each, condition of houses, lack of property items such as a farm house, a motorcycle, or a television set, absence of education or water source approach.

At the time of the interviews, village Y had 176 households, of which 72 (41%) and 104 (59%) were poor and non-poor households, respectively.

First, we randomly extracted the respondents from a total of 176 households in village Y based on the percentage of poor and non-poor households below, then interviewed 32 households (18%), of which there were 13 poor households (40.6%) and 19 non-poor households (59.4%). The questionnaire included basic information on the households and household heads, farmland and allocated forestland areas, income sources, and participation in the PFES scheme. We also used some open-ended questions to understand their opinion about participation in the PFES program. Table 1 lists the characteristics of sample households.

Figure 2 illustrates the analytical framework used in this study. According to Corbera’s equity, access could influence the participation of local people [32]. We used eligibility, ability, and desire as patterns to identify the extent of local people’s participation in PFES. Equity was not only about the participation but also about the inclusion and negotiation in the program [33]. Accordingly, we examined the decision-making process at each stage of PFES implementation. Finally, the livelihood improvement of local people was identified by the access to forestland resources and household income.

3. Results

3.1. Who Are the Participants?

Twenty-two out of the 32 interviewed households participated in PFES. To be eligible for inclusion into the PFES scheme, the forest areas had to have land use rights through the Forestland Allocation and be within the location that provides the forest ecosystem services (in the basin of the hydropower plant). In the Hong Trung commune, land was allocated to the community and local organizations. Under this condition, all members belonging to communities or local organizations could participate in PFES. However, other eligibility criteria to participate in PFES were added by communities and local organizations. According to the interviews with households and officials, the participants were chosen through community meetings organized by the Community Forest Management Board. There were four criteria of prospective participants. First, local people had to be aware of the PFES program, especially forest protection activities, and should not have been involved in illegal logging incidents in the past. Second, the participants should have had the ability (e.g., good health) to conduct forest management activities, especially forest patrolling. Third, participants had to be approved by more than 50% of the votes in the community meeting. Fourth, participants had to be committed to perform forest management activities assigned by communities or local organizations. The final decision was made by the Community Forest Management Board. There was no significant difference in PFES participation proportions between poor and non-poor households (

Table 2. Number of participant households (N = 22).

	Poor	Non-Poor
PFES participation	9 (69.2%)	13 (68.4%)
Form of participation	Community (9)	Community (9), Local organization (4)

Source: Household survey, 2020.

).

Another 10 out of the 32 interviewed households could not participate because they did not meet the requirements. However, they wished to participate in the PFES scheme in the future. Our survey showed that 100% households would like to participate in PFES. Local people involved in PFES voluntarily had various motivations, including income, protecting their community forests as a duty and responsibility, collecting non-timber forest products (NTFPs) in forest areas, and stability of payment. From the household interviews with participants using multiple answers, 78.9% of non-poor households and 84.6% of poor households participated in PFES to improve their income (

Table 3. Reasons to participate (multiple answers).

Reasons	Poor		Non-Poor
	Number	Percentages	Number	Percentages
Increasing income	11	84.6	15	78.9
Protecting community forest	7	53.8	12	63.1
Collecting NTFPs	3	23.1	2	10.5
Stability of payment	9	69.2	9	47.3
Others	4	30.8	5	26.3

Source: Household survey, 2020.

). In addition, 69.2% of poor households assumed that the stability of payment was an important reason for participation. They believed that they could receive the stable payment annually if they conducted forest patrolling well.

Recently, village Y has participated in another forest protection program (Decree 75/2015 ND-CP). Its payment was calculated by the hectares of forest protected under the program. However, local people were more interested in PFES because they could get the payment not only based on their working day but also the quality of forest covered by the PFES program remit. Additionally, based on a household survey, more than 50% of poor and non-poor households answered that protecting community forests as a community member’s responsibility was a reason to participate. The ability to collect NTFPs during forest patrolling was also mentioned as a reason to participate. Local people claimed that access to forest resources became strict because of the complicated procedures by local authorities.

3.2. Level of Participation

During the PFES planning stage, each community had a meeting to discuss the ability to implement PFES in their community forest. Local people could participate in the decision-making process to consider whether to implement the PFES. The percentage of participants differed between poor households (61.5%) and non-poor households (33.0%). Some respondents claimed that they did not receive any information about this stage. However, results from the household survey showed that the major responsibilities for decision-making in this step were not allotted to local people. The majority of the participants (90.9%) indicated that all of the main decisions related to the starting stage were made by the TTHFPDF and CPC. Local people were not given a chance to discuss the content of the agreement and did not have any influence on the contract preparation procedure. Among the 22 households that benefited from PFES, three households (one poor household and two non-poor households) had not heard about PFES up until the time of our interview. Moreover, only 31% understood that payments were from the hydropower plant and water supply companies. Others confirmed that payment was from the TTHFPDF or other sources of forestry programs.

By the time of PFES implementation, the decision-making process started to involve more local people. There were many activities at this stage, including making forest boundaries and forest management plans, fighting forest fires, measuring biomass, training in technical forest management-related activities, and meeting with ecosystem service users (hydropower plant companies and water supply companies). The forest management plan would be drafted first, and the task under the forest management plan would be assigned to the participants after that. Local people confirmed that the FPU would set this plan and there was no way to express their disagreement if they had it. Nevertheless, local people could participate in the Community Forest Management Board meeting to discuss and assign tasks under the forest management plan.

Table 4. Percentages of participants that took part in PFES implementation (multiple answers).

Activities	Poor (N = 9)	Non-Poor (N = 13)
Forest patrolling	88.9%	84.6%
Making forest boundaries	33.3%	38.5%
Forest fire fighting	33.3%	46.1%
Measuring biomass	11.1%	23.1%
Participation in training	55.6%	69.2%
Attending meetings	66.7%	76.9%

Source: Household survey, 2020.

shows the involvement of participants in implementation activities. Forest patrolling showed a high level of participation under PFES implementation, and local people claimed that it was a compulsory activity. It was followed by attending meetings organized regularly to obtain local people’s opinions about PFES implementation activities. In addition, 55.6% of poor participants and 69.2% of non-poor participants actively participated in the training. A staff member of the TTTHFPDF arranged the training, during which the knowledge of forest monitoring and evaluation using GIS application, PFES application procedure, and PFES payment management was shared. In contrast, there was a low level of participation in technical activities (e.g., measuring biomass). This was explained by the difficulties in learning the technical activities by the local people.

In terms of decision-making, the TTHFPDF regulated PFES distribution. However, the distribution was also discussed at a community meeting. After receiving payments from the TTHFPDF, the Commune Forest Management Board organized a meeting to inform about the payment and plan for distribution. All members could attend the meeting, and the decision was given by voting. The majority of poor (66.7%) and non-poor households (69.2%), which we interviewed, were also involved in this step. Nevertheless, 66.7% of the participants believed that this meeting was just a token announcement of the PFES distribution that the Commune Forest Management Board had already decided upon. An in-depth interview with the staff of the Commune Forest Management Board revealed that they thought that the distribution was based on the regulation from the TTHFPDF. The majority of the payments (60–70%) were given for forest patrolling activities. The Commune Forest Management Board spent about 10% of the payment for microcredits, which were used to improve participants’ livelihood. The participants were asked to decide by voting, who could benefit from such 10% fraction of the payment. They assumed that the needs of local people and their trust were the criteria for decision-making. Nonetheless, it should be noted that 45.5% of the interviewed participants claimed that they did not know precisely the payment time.

3.3. Impacts of PFES on Local People

Although land in Vietnam belongs to the state, the highest land tenure is the Certificate of Land Use Rights (which was called Redbook), with which land users can “exchange, assign, inherit, donate, lease, or sublease land use rights’ (National Assembly 2003). Our survey showed that the mean area of agricultural land and forestland of non-poor households was higher than that of poor households (

Table 5. Land use tenure of households.

	Before PFES		Under PFES
	Poor	Non-Poor	Poor	Non-Poor
Land use classification
Residential areas (%)	5.70	4.43	5.69	4.31
Agricultural land (%)	6.72	7.73	7.01	7.53
Mean agricultural land (ha)	0.07	0.09	0.07	0.09
Forestland (%)	87.58	87.84	87.30	88.16
Mean forestland (ha)	0.94	1.06	0.94	1.09
Legality
Land use certification (%)	56.70	57.00	59.20	60.70
Without land use certification (%)	43.30	43.00	40.80	39.30

Source: Household survey, 2020.

). On average, forestland accounted for more than 87% of the total land area available for both poor and non-poor households. Even though this percentage was high, only four households had acacia plantations due to a lack of investment and labor. Twenty households hoped to have more agricultural land; however, none had a plan to encroach on the land.

Under PFES, there was a slight decrease in the forestland areas of poor households. They explained that when local authorities assessed the forest area to be covered by PFES, some of the originally available forest area was withdrawn from the scheme. In contrast, the percentage of forestland in non-poor households slightly increased from 87.84% to 88.16%.

Regarding the legal aspects, 56.7% and 57.0% of the land area in poor and non-poor households, respectively, had land use certification before PFES (Table 5). After the introduction of PFES, the proportion of land verified by land use certifications slightly increased in the village, because land use certification was one of the criteria for payment. The percentage was also higher for non-poor households than for poor households. The majority of the households without land use certificates were households that were newly separated from their parents’ households after getting married or households that newly immigrated to village Y.

Regarding the access to forest resources, households no longer exploited timber after PFES. Many households said they had not gone to forests to exploit timber for many years since the government started to apply forest protection policies even before the implementation of PFES. Only poor households with a need for timber for house building submitted an application to local authorities to obtain permission to harvest timber in the designed area. Figure 3 shows the proportion of households that exploited NTFPs before and under PFES. The households collected NTFPs from both the contracted forest plots and non-PFES forests.

The most popular NTFP exploited by the households was firewood. More than 70% of the respondents collected it. Most of the NFTPs were collected for self-consumption; only two poor households collected honeybees for sale. On average, households earned from NTFPs only 515,000 VND/household before PFES and 750,000 VND/household under PFES.

There were no differences between poor and non-poor households in the exploitation of NTFPs. However, NTFP collection decreased after PFES implementation. The interviewed households gave three main reasons for this. First, the households switched from using firewood to gas or electric stoves. Therefore, they did not need to collect firewood from the forest. Second, it became harder to exploit NTFPs because of the depletion of natural resources. Third, the local government enacted regulations on accessing forests. Some additional reasons were also lack of laborers and health. The total income of PFES households, on average, was higher than that of non-PFES households for both poor and non-poor households (

Table 6. Total household income.

Household Income	Poor (13)		Non-Poor (19)
	PFES (9)	Without PFES (4)	PFES (13)	Without PFES (6)
Total (Million VND)	23.3	22.3	26.8	24.2

Source: Household survey, 2020.

).

Figure 4 shows the household income distribution. It consists of six main categories: agriculture, labor wage, PFES, NTFPs, salary, and other sources of income (pension, allowance, etc.). There was no difference in the income distribution pattern between poor and non-poor households that received or did not receive PFES. Among the six sources, labor wage was the major paid non-farm household activity. The fraction of income earned as labor wages for the non-PFES households was higher than that of the PFES households for both poor and non-poor households. The labor wage contribution of poor households was higher than that of non-poor households (Figure 4).

About 70% of the households had income from agriculture. However, agricultural products, such as rice, corn, and vegetables, did not contribute significantly to their income because of low productivity and small production output. For this reason, most households used agricultural products for their self-consumption only. Consequently, the income from agriculture was mainly from selling goats, chickens, and ducks. Incomes from agricultural and labor wages in the poor households receiving PFES were lower than those of the households not participating in PFES. On average, participant households earned 2.3 million VND/household from farming and 16.5 million VND/household from labor wages. In contrast, households not participating in PFES earned 2.8 million VND/household and 17.9 million VND/household from farming and labor wages, respectively. In non-poor households, income from agricultural activities in the PFES households was higher than in the non-PFES households.

Non-poor households did not earn money from NTFPs, whereas poor households did. The fraction of income from NTFPs in the households that received PFES was slightly higher than in the households that did not receive PFES (2.6% and 1.8%, respectively). The households involved explained this by the fact that they could collect some NTFPs while conducting forest patrolling. The poor and non-poor households received, respectively, 2.4 million and 2.3 million VND from PFES on average. Results from the survey showed that PFES was the second-highest income source for poor households, even though this payment comprised only 10.3% of the total income (Figure 4). In addition, eight out of nine poor households supposed that they could receive PFES annually if they conducted forest patrolling based on the assignment of the Commune Forest Management Board. In non-poor households, PFES accounted for 8.3% of the total income, which was the third largest income contribution after labor wages and agriculture.

We also interviewed the households about the ways in which PFES income was spent (

Table 7. Purpose of PFES payments using in village Y.

Purpose	Poor (9)		Non-Poor (13)
	Number of hhs	Percentage	Number of hhs	Percentage
Savings	-	-	2	15.3%
Agricultural investment	-	-	3	23.1%
Payment of bills	1	11.1%	3	23.1%
Purchase of forest patrolling equipment	2	22.2%	4	30.8%
Payment of children education fees	3	33.3%	2	15.3%
Payment of debts	4	36%	2	15.3%
Purchase of necessities	6	66.7%	10	77.4%

Source: Household survey, 2020.

).

After receiving the payments by cash, households used it to purchase forest patrolling equipment, pay debts, buy necessities such as spices, rice, and other products. Because the payment was paid at the end of the year (i.e., just before the lunar new year), the cash from PFES was helpful for the preparation. Most of the payments were used to buy necessities in poor (66.7%) and non-poor (77.4%) households. In addition, two non-poor households (15.3%) spent part of the payment on savings, and three households spent it on agricultural investment (e.g., livestock breeds or acacia seeds) (Table 7). No poor household spent PFES for those purposes.

4. Discussion and Conclusions

In this study, we examined patterns influencing the participation of local people in the PFES program and identified the level of involvement of the participants in the decision-making process at every PFES stage. Unlike a previous study done in Latin America [13], our study showed that the first criterion for participation was land tenure. However, as pointed out by McElwee, it was not an issue in the selection for participation [4], because the forestland was managed by the community and local organizations. In addition, our study showed that labor force and regulation commitments were PFES participation determinants. Participation in PFES was used as a reward for labor work in forests [34] and a means to compensate for the legal rights of participants. Meanwhile, McElwee et al. concluded that participation largely depended on the awareness of the PES program among land-owning communities [4]. Our study revealed similar findings to those of previous studies in terms of motivation [2,9,14]. Additional income was the most important factor for local people to participate. The continuity and stability of payments should be considered to promote the enthusiasm of local people’s participation.

Previous studies on PFES have shown that many PFES working plans originate from a top-down approach [24,25]. Cobera also found that PES was likely to reinforce existing structure [15]. In contrast, local people were involved in the decision-making process at some stages on our study site. Research on the community participation in PES revealed that participation in PES schemes was limited by the planning stage [2,9,13]. Our study obtained similar results at this stage. Here, local people were passive spectators in the supply of ecosystem services and not involved in the management of the scheme implementation. However, there was a high level of participation during the PFES implementation stage (Table 4), during which local people could be involved in most of the activities. According to Islam et al. [35], a lack of community participation during the monitoring, evaluation, and distribution stages may lead to the failure of such projects. Our study shows that PFES increased local people’s opportunities to participate in local decision-making. However, local people were only partly involved in the decision-making process in terms of payment distribution, whereas the Commune Forest Management Board played an important role in that process. Thus, our study suggests that increasing the role of local people in the payment distribution process is necessary to enhance procedural equity.

In terms of the impact of PFES on participants, our study showed that PFES increased the legality of land use rights, which was similar to the observations in Cambodia [36] and Ecuador [37]. However, we could not simply identify changes in the access to forest resources of local people before and after PFES because previous intervention programs had already limited local people’s access to natural resources. For instance, the government implemented national conservation and forestry programs, such as Programs 327 and 661, between the 1980s and the 2000s. Thus, PFES was not the first project that reduced local access to forests in the studied location. In addition, our study showed that natural resources were strictly protected and there were limited ways in which local people could exploit these resources. In fact, households did not have much access to forest resources; however, PFES probably was not the single reason for any decrease in the access of local people to forests.

Regarding financial access, PFES provided additional income to meet local peoples’ immediate needs. Our results suggest that payments could be a partial motivation for participants in environmental services (monetary benefit). Our findings are similar to those reported by Pascual et al. [17]. In summary, PFES was found to constitute a stable share of households’ total annual income, even though its proportion was small, especially in the non-poor household group (Figure 4). Nevertheless, the increased income from PFES did not mobilize poor people to produce new livelihood strategies, such as income diversification. Instead, the respondents spent payments for food and other consumables to improve their standard of living. Only non-poor households considered the use of PFES for other livelihood strategies. Thus, PFES has only smoothed access to microcredit provided by the community for participants to enhance their livelihood.

In conclusion, this study reveals challenges in improving the participation of local people in PFES schemes. In addition to financial benefits, non-financial incentives should be included to promote the participation of locals. PFES in Vietnam allowed involvement of local people in decision-making at several stages of implementation. The establishment of collaborative agreements should also be considered to increase the local voice further.

Our study discussed PFES through a specific case study (i.e., village Y of the Hong Trung Commune in the A Luoi District of Thua Thien Hue province) among 45 provinces with PFES in the whole of Vietnam. Each province has different PFES settings because the PFES scheme needs to adapt to individual contexts. Thus, our study results may be insufficiently representative of the PFES program in Vietnam. Nonetheless, our study is beneficial for further research and development of this program, as we showed the effectiveness of PFES scheme implementation and importance of participation and involvement of local people.

Another limitation of this study is that data analyses were mainly based on traditional statistical methods. Thus, comparing provinces using more innovative methods, such as inferential statistics, is a challenge for future studies. Besides, our study focused on the pattern of participation based on equity access; however, other factors—education, age, previous experience in implementing environmental measures, and environmental awareness—also may influence local people’s participation in PFES. Therefore, these factors also need to be analyzed in future studies.