In northern Vietnam, the national government is aiming at large-scale devolution of the use, management, and governance of land and forest resources (Neef et al. 2007). In Dak Lak province, the local government has transferred forests formerly owned and managed by state enterprises to the local people. It is now their duty to protect and certify the forests, and enforce protection contracts (Thanh and Sikor 2006). It is not surprising that such a far reaching devolution of responsibilities has created new problems: Case studies show that devolution resulted in discrepancies between formal legal rights, actual interpreted rights, and forest-use practices. The scope and reach of actual rights has become an issue of intense negotiations or even conflicts among actors involved in local resource use (Thanh and Sikor 2006).