Spatial patterns of poverty and forest cover dynamics in the Vietnamese Highlands

Forest cover dynamics is a significant outcome of spatial patterns of poverty, with far-reaching impacts on climate change, biodiversity loss, infectious diseases, and livelihoods. At the national-scale, Vietnam has been undergoing forest recovery since the early 1990s with a shift from net deforestation to net reforestation. However, large disparities in forest cover dynamics are observed at the local scale. This study examines the correlation between poverty and forest cover dynamics at the commune level in Lao Cai province, situated in the Northern Vietnamese mountains. The forest cover data were obtained from the Forest Inventory and Planning Institute of Vietnam (FIPI) for the years 2000 and 2015. By analyzing forest cover changes from 2000 to 2015, we employed Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) to investigate potential links between forest cover change and socio-economic factors. Our findings reveal that over the past 15 years, Lao Cai province has experienced an overall reforestation trend. However, these trends mask significant disparities among various communes. Communes dominated by Kinh people with better accessibility and low pressure on agricultural land have witnessed an increase in plantation forests, while communes with significant poverty and illiteracy reduction have seen a rise in natural forests. This disparity suggests that the expansion of forests in Lao Cai province cannot be solely attributed to land use policies; instead, it is the result of a combination of factors, including poverty reduction, agricultural intensification, market integration, and economic growth.