Relationships to Other Papers
Daria Kim

When I first began my studies on the agricultural sustainability of a small village in North Vietnam, my purpose was clear cut: in order to explore the relationship between population and natural resources, I would focus my project on just those two aspects, the growth rate and the region’s agricultural yield, expecting to see that one would simply be the inverse of the other. As I continued my research and as I became exposed to the projects of my fellow students, I began to notice that the challenges in exploring the dynamics between population and environment could be both amazingly simple and yet tantalizingly complex.

Most projects were developed within the framework of transitional theory. Transitions as defined by Professor Drake is "a specific period of time which spans the shift from slow to rapid change in the sector and then usually a return again to relative stability." Transitions are usually characterized by the fact they can exist over many different sectors, have similar trajectories, and are apparent at different geographic or temporal scales. Because of the nature of change within transitions, there is a period when sectors may become vulnerable to damage and, in some transitions, pass a threshold of irreversibility. Therefore, unless steps are taken to address some of the societal implications of transitions, the resulting stability may indeed be one that’s undesirable.

The projects which were explored within this framework shared the common themes of transitional theory, and thus could be compared simply along those same lines. What is interesting about transition theory is that despite the many similarities transitions may share, transitions frequently interact with one another which makes analyzing them quite complex. Most the projects in this class presented policy changes as a way of addressing these transitional vulnerabilities.

Thammasack’s paper on Deforestation in Southeast Asia looked at both forestry transitions and economic transitions, whereas my paper explored the relationship between demographic transitions and agricultural transitions. Her paper was of direct interest to me because one of the things I wanted to research was the role of forestry in Vietnam’s socioeconomic and environmental development. Her transitional theory revealed that Vietnam’s deforestation rates were alarming (annually over 100,000 hectares), and that this will continue to grow. Because forests are important for the protection of water resources, control of soil erosion, as well as for shelter, and for providing medicinal plants, its protection and its conservation is of utmost importance.

Based on transitional theory and on Thammasack’s careful analysis, Vietnam is currently going through the vulnerable stages of its forestry transition, and sectors such as the economy, agricultural cultures (including my once oh-so-simple village in North Vietnam), and urban centers will become affected by its current trajectory. The key to addressing this is in the creation of policies aimed at restoring forestry and with the long term goal of sustainable development. Thus, unless deliberate steps are taken to ensure the protection of Vietnam’s current forest coverage, the country’s deforestation rate may pass into one of irreversibility and eventually undesirable stability.

A scenario no one wants.