Forest protection is culture...

PV: Sir, forests are living spaces, where ethnic minority communities have been formed and created for generations. Forest culture has been formed and preserved since then. Through the vicissitudes of history, that culture, combined with an instinctive love for nature and plants, has created the strength for ethnic minorities to preserve and protect forests. Looking at it from a deeper perspective, how should forest culture be understood?

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lam Ba Nam: Vietnam is a multi-ethnic country. 54 ethnic groups in Vietnam, including 53 ethnic minorities, live mainly in mountainous areas. This is a very important living space closely associated with ethnic minorities in Vietnam. I can quote a French scholar when talking about ethnic groups in the Central Highlands of Vietnam: "For ethnic groups in the highlands, people are born with the forest, grow up with the forest and die and return to the forest. The forest is culture".

It can be said that when living in the forest, adapting to the forest, ethnic groups create a behavior associated with the process of preserving and conserving their own living environment. Ethnic minorities in Vietnam are very knowledgeable about their living environment. They understand the laws of motion of the environment around them to create a suitable agricultural calendar in the landscape environment, suitable in the production rhythm of the environment, from which, many ethnic groups appear in a form temporarily called "customary law". People regulate which season is allowed to pick bamboo shoots, which season is allowed to exploit wood... people have experience about the vegetation around them. People regulate that at a certain period of time, when the trees in the forest are growing and thriving, that is the time to ban the forest, the time when natural resources in the forest cannot be exploited so that trees and all species can grow; And when the weather is dry, the trees begin to grow strong, the bamboo species at that time "dry up" then people exploit it for use in daily life such as building houses, doing handicrafts... This is knowledge that only ethnic minorities in that area can grasp.

PV: So, from knowledge in working life and production, forest culture has been formed. How has that culture been promoted in the lives of ethnic minorities, sir?

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lam Ba Nam: It can be seen that ethnic minorities in Vietnam are mainly born in mountainous environments, from North to South, from Viet Bac, Northeast to Truong Son and Tay Nguyen regions. They impact that environment to create a livelihood and form a form that scientists often refer to as the culture of slash-and-burn farmers, or slash-and-burn culture, or more broadly, the highland culture of the highland population.

For ethnic minorities in the Northern mountainous region, the natural environment has its own characteristics. It is a place with high mountain peaks, fast-flowing rivers, tropical monsoon climate and subtropical characteristics that govern life. Therefore, ethnic minorities carry out agricultural production activities with their own adaptability. In the Truong Son and Tay Nguyen regions, due to the characteristics of the terrain, where the population is sparse and each community owns a large space, which is the village space, and that village space is the forest. That village space becomes flesh and blood in their lives, so in the traditional Tay Nguyen, some ethnic groups have collective ownership customs. That entire space belongs to the village, the village is responsible for preserving it, protecting it, nurturing it to serve the development needs of the community. The living environment of ethnic groups is embedded in the folk consciousness, in the folk customary law and in the way people behave towards the environment.

Spiritual beliefs appear in almost all ethnic groups living in mountainous areas. Many ethnic groups consider that space sacred, a space that nurtures the ethnic group. People believe that trees have sacred souls. This is the idea of animism. Therefore, in addition to making regulations related to environmental protection and forest protection, people also perform rituals such as forest worship and village worship, because people believe that each forest, each mountain, and each river has a spiritual element. And depending on each ethnic group, they perform rituals in different cycles of the year, sometimes at the end of the year or the beginning of the year. For example, the forest opening ceremony, people stipulate when they can enter the forest to exploit, which is related to the growth cycle of trees and animals in the forest. This ritual is for the community, not a personal ritual and is not a religious spiritual ritual. For a long time we have underestimated the positive role of spiritual and religious elements, forgetting that they enter into the folk consciousness, they enter into ethnic traditions, and that is what protects the environment. If we look at it from a superstitious perspective, it is completely wrong, but we must look at it from a cultural perspective. Culture is deeply ingrained in the blood and flesh of each ethnic group, each community.

PV: So, in your opinion, how is that culture affected by changes in modern life, and can it still be maintained and promoted?

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lam Ba Nam: In the past few decades, the environment in many mountainous areas has changed unpredictably. This change is related to the need for socio-economic development; construction of projects such as hydroelectric plants across the country has disrupted the living environment of many communities. For example, residents living in low mountainous and valley areas have to move to high mountainous areas, losing their original living space - a space in which they have a lot of experience and related knowledge.

I remember about 30 years ago, I went to Hoa Binh area, upstream of Boi River, I stayed at a family's house on the bank of Boi River. I asked the old man if this area floods every year? He said: There are years when there are floods. I asked again: Do you think the water will rise this year? The old man replied: There is no flood this year. I asked: Sir, why is that? The old man said: "I observed, I know". He led me to the riverbank, holding a lantern, shining it on a wasp nest and explained: "Every year the wasp nest is high, the water is high, this year it nests low, the water is not high". Perhaps, there will come a time when it is necessary to exploit and re-study the entire knowledge system of ethnic minorities regarding their living environment - a treasure that we are forgetting, to put into service for today's socio-economic development.

PV: So how should the vitality of ethnic minority culture be preserved, conserved and developed in the coming time, sir?

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lam Ba Nam: To preserve and develop ethnic cultural values related to the environment, there are several issues: First of all, the issue of stabilizing living space. Never assume that ethnic minorities living in traditional houses are backward. The H'Mong, Ha Nhi, Lo Lo people... in the highlands, they live in low, closed houses, which is suitable for the climate of that area. We have seen houses with walls 40 - 50cm thick, cool in summer, warm in winter to adapt to the environment and for thousands of years, they have adapted like that. It has become a cultural form of ethnic life, from housing to clothing, from festivals to livelihood activities.

To protect the environment, the impact on the environment must be conscious and knowledgeable, not natural and unconscious. Protecting the environment must come from thinking about the environment.

Second, behaving towards the environment is a cultural behavior and it is a part of the culture in the life of ethnic groups. Engels once said: "Humans are products of nature". Humans are in the heart of nature and must obey the laws of nature. Therefore, the living environment has entered folk culture, customary law, beliefs, religions and other forms of folklore. We need to respect it, recognize it as a heritage, but that heritage is not frozen but always moving and developing. We need to know how to exploit it and bring it into the development of contemporary life. It is time for us to have more complete research, because knowledge about forests is not purely knowledge about plants and trees, but also related to the conservation and exploitation of flora and fauna, water resources, minerals, etc.

And it is time for more specific policies to create a connection between the State and the community, in which the role of the community and the people as cultural subjects needs to be given due attention and needs to be exploited more effectively in today's socio-economic life.

PV: Thank you very much!

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