The Government of Vietnam has undertaken an extensive reforestation program since the first and second Indochinese wars that had left many thousands of hectare of forest destroyed either as part of military operations or during the post-war reconstruction period. Consequently, Vietnam was among the first countries in the world to turn around the trend of overall deforestation and begin to increase forest area. The RUPES research work in Vietnam has been playing a small but important part in what is increasingly a complex and nuanced response by the Government to a variety of ‘services’ that can be provided by forests, one of which is landscape beauty. Specifically, the RUPES team at the Vietnam office have been studying how eco-tourism could be part of a rewards for environmental services scheme in the area that would benefit local farmers who lived in and around the national park, most of whom were members of ethnic minority groups. This was the general content that we wanted to capture in the documentary.

We also wanted to test our hypothesis that staff with limited technical training in film-making could produce a video that was suitable for presentation to farmers and Government officers. If this was proven, then we wanted to later test if these same staff could train farmers and extension workers in how to make videos as part of project and post-project communications. Our assumptions here were that film might be a medium that was more appropriate than written material because ethnic-minority group farmers, such as those who lived around Ba Be Lake, perhaps did not feel comfortable with the national language; second, that a lot of printed extension material existed but anecdotal evidence suggested it could be easily misinterpreted or not used; third, that the technical equipment to make films was readily available and not overly expensive; and, fourth, that for people who were used to learning by seeing and doing (that is, farmers), moving pictures were possibly more efficient in communicating concepts and technical information accurately.

And so, armed with a home video camera, a cheap tripod and a good quality sound recorder (total cost of all the equipment was under USD 1000) we set off to Ba Be Lake. En route, we interviewed staff of the IFAD-funded Pro-Poor Partnership for Agroforestry Development project (an important RUPES partner) and Government officials of Bac Kan province. At the lake, we met with local farmers and conducted interviews about what they thought of the rewards for environmental services scheme that they were currently involved in discussing and setting up; observed the types of digital equipment in farmers’ homes, local schools and Government offices (so we could more easily distribute films); filmed the landscape, which was indeed beautiful; and even recorded local songs, including one composed and sung by a female farmer about Ba Be Lake.

The result of Ms Nguyen’s work is many hours of footage and sound files that have to be edited to fit the film’s concept. Keeping to our principle of low-cost and do-it-yourself, we downloaded free film-editing software that was designed to work on low-processing-power computers and Ms Nguyen began the task of condensing all those hours into 8 minutes of storytelling.

Once the film has been edited and reviewed by staff and partners, it will be distributed on DVD to farmers, NGOs and Government. It will also be uploaded to the Internet and potentially downloaded to mobile phones.

Then the tasks will be to assess not only the effectiveness of the video in making its message clear, but also assessing the applicability of the process for training to farmers and others.

We hope that in so doing we can help strengthen the work of the RUPES team in Vietnam and, indirectly, protect the environment and improve farmers’ livelihoods through better communication.