After 30 years, Dong Thang Commune's forest and forestland have rightful owners

• Its 30 years since the Secretariat of the Central Communist Party issued their directive "to make every land area, every forest, every hill have a rightful owner". On December 24^th, 2013, 6 villages and 112 households of the rural villages of Pac Cooc, Pac Dau, Na Xoong, Na Ngoa, Lan Khe, and Na Xoong saw this directive put into practice, as they were officially granted certificates of use right of 3,500 hectares of land and forest. There could be no greater news for the Dong Thang people before new year’s eve 2014.
  
  
  
   Awards Ceremony for Certificate of Forest and Forestland Use Rights at Dong Thang Commune
   
  Dong Thang is a remote commune of Dinh Lap District, Lang Son Province, populated by ethnic minority Tay, Dzao, and San Chi people. Although people of Dong Thang have been living surrounded by forest, they have not been able to earn a living from it, or plan their lives with any certainty.  Before 2010, policies and directives regarding forest and forestland allocation had not made a real change to their lives. But then Joint Circular No. 07/2011//TTLT-BNNPTNT-BTNMT by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Guides and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment dated 29/01/2011 providing guidance on these issues.
   
  To the people of Dong Thang, the Circular felt like a rain blowing through the arid fields, meeting grabbing forests, then stopping and pouring paddy-field hard, damping every tree, and making them bud. The Project "Enhancing Sustainable Management Capacity of natural resources" in Dong Thang Commune supported by CIRUM is like an invisible forest that binds the rain.
   
  The Project pulled together Dinh Lap District's authorities, including the Natural Resources and Environment Committee Division, Forest Rangers, Land Use Right Registration Office, governments of all levels, consultancy bodies, and the communities in a tight and responsible collaboration  to accomplish the mission to grant the forestland and forest management rights to every household and village community. The allocated area makes up 65% of the Commune's total forestland area.
  
  
  Representative of a household's owner in Dong Thang Commune receiving forest and forestland use rights
  
  The atmosphere at the award ceremony feels much warmer than you would expect on a cold winter’s day in the Northeast region when Mr. Vi Van Tho, Deputy Chairman solemnly reads the decisions of forest and forestland allocation and gives the Certificate of Forest and Forestland Use Right for 50 years for production forests and long-term for protection forests. The people who are household owners and representatives of the six rural village communities have the honor of receiving red cards from Mr. Hoang Van Vuong, Chairman of the People's Committee and then embrace red cards as if they were their own flesh and blood.
   
  Looking at the happy faces of the people and the communities' representatives, it is clear that everyone would want this result to be duplicated in other communities, where people don’t have access to land or forest that could keep alive their culture or enable them to make sustainable livelihoods for their communities.
   
  Eventually, the ceremony of handing over the forest and land right certificates was over, but the villagers still kept on staying to share with each other their joys when receiving the red books. Their happiness was simple but very profound. As Ms. Duong Thi Xuan of Na Ngoa village said, “Thank you, the governments of District and Commune, thank you CIRUM. It's very joyful. From now on I won't be afraid of our land or forest being taken away by anyone. I have peace of mind this New Year. Nothing is more cheerful than this!"
  
  CIRUM