Ho Moong was established on on 22/03/2006 under the Government's Decree No. 28/2006/ND-CP. When established, the commune has 860 households with 4,327 people, including 748 households in the resettlement area. Currently, the commune has 1,060 households with 6,030, in which 91% of the population are ethnic minorities, mainly Ba Nah and Gia Rai. The total area of the commune is 6,903 hectares. The geography of the commune is surrounded by the hydropower reservoir and steep mountains.

On the basis of the construction plan for resettlement of 749 households have been approved to be removed from the floodplain, each resettlement family is allocated 400m ² of residential, 1 to 2 ha of production land and 600 m² of wet rice field.

From 2005 to 2006, the plan of commune to relocate the resettled people to new places was implemented. In the early years, due to many reasons, the allocation of agricultural land was only done for 576 resettled households with 663 ha. There is not enough land to allocate for the remaining 172 households, although still availability of about 275 ha (data from investors) was reclaimed, but people did not receive this land due to bad soil, not suitable for the production of agricultural crops and cultivation skill of the people. The above problems have affected the stability of the resettlement.

In recent years, leaders of Kon Tum province, the Hydropower Project Management Board Unit 4 have focused on leadership and direction to overcome the above shortcomings. Of these, 161/172 landless households were allocated land for production. Specifically, the Hydropower Project Management Unit 4 has contributed capital for the provincial People’s Committee to resettle 56 households (28.5 billion USD).The project has mobilized people to receive poor land with solutions of increasing the area and supporting money for soil improvement. Some households received money (converted unit price of 1 to 1.2 ha) in order to self-adjust their land i.e. buying more parcels of land to be sufficient for production.

Besides, the project has solved the case of shortcomings in the process of documentation of compensation for land flooded more on constructed dam elevation (paid 1.1 billion VND), and supported for cases of the dropped production due to giving land for construction with a budget of 4.7 billion VND. Also, the Hydropower Project Management Unit 4 has transferred 1.3 billion VND to upgrade the irrigation dam.

Total cost of overcoming the shortcomings of the Management Project Board Unit 4 in the past years estimated 35.6 billion VND, excluding the investment of the province to resolve the backlog of drinking water, construction of infrastructure for education and upgrading of roads ... estimated at 10 billion VND.

Entire commune remains only 1,200 hectares of forest land, but mostly degraded forest. Hence, people have reclaimed to produce short-term crops, but the economic efficiency is very low. Yet, the resettlement project has no plans to allocate forest land to displaced people.

The whole area of forest land remains 1,200 ha which was reclaimed by the people. This area has been declared, defined and measured for granting land use rights in 2013. However, it requires further investments on this land for afforestation or many different purposes such as improving the environment, preserving water source, etc  in order to increase household income for life stability in the resettlement area.

After 6 years of resettlement for 749 households in Ho Moong commune, Sa Thay district, Kon Tum province, basically the political security is always ensured, economic development is getting progressed. The commune planted about 800 hectares of cash crops such as rubber and coffee, as well more than 200 ha of ‘Boi Loi’ tree (Litsea glutinosa).

However, the practice of implementation of resettlement project for 748 families remains some shortcomings.

Firstly: Quota for agricultural land per one resettled household from 1-2 ha, 600 to 1,000 m2 of wet rice land is too little for economic improvement and development. The fact shows that one family of ethnic minority on average has from 5-7 people, many households have from 8-12 people. Therefore, some households have cleared the poor forest for production, but getting very low productivity because they could only grow cassava and upland rice.

Secondly: According to the standard and planning, one family is granted 400 m2 of residential land. So, the living space of families and whole community is very cramped and unsuitable even for economic gardening development, not to mention the self-balance their land when their children get married in the context that the resettlement planning does not have reserve land.

Thirdly: In addition to agricultural land granted under the standards, the existing areas reclaimed by the people are mainly poor forest to grow short-term crops with low economic value. Yet, there is absence of investments for planting multi-purpose materials trees.

Fourthly: Policies and mechanisms for investments in the resettlement areas are not strong enough for resettled people soon stabilize their life. Currently, the project only implements to grant residential and productive land, building houses and support foods, etc., but do not have plans in the post-resettlement to help local governments actively investing for people to improve their income and stabilize the life.

With the current status of the commune, the government should consider to grant from 2,000 to 3,000 m² of land for resettlement families in ethnic minority areas associated with production land (from 2.000 to 3.000 m²), from 2 to 3 ha of land for agricultural production, and above 2,000 m² of land for 02 seasons wet rice production.

The government soon grants the use rights for the slopping reclaimed land. Also, it is necessary to have a plan to promote multi-purpose material plantations with funding supported from the electricity industry and the investors for the resettlement areas and people in Ho Moong in particular. The investors and Electricity Group must have a plan and budget for economic development in the post-resettlement, including supports for people to plant forests in the bare hills and mountains, and poor forest areas to return the reclaimed farm areas lost by the replacement.

Nguyen van Niem
(Source: Workshop Proceeding on Land Management and Utilization in Ethnic Minority Communities in Upland Vietnam hosted by SPERI/CODE/CIRUM on 1^st November 2012)