Any study of Vietnam’s forest resources must include a discussion of the ways the nation’s population has expanded, especially over the past two hundred years. The densely populated Red River Delta has supported large populations for centuries. As early as 1600, an estimated 6 million people lived in Vietnam, 90 percent of whom resided in the north’s lowland delta and flood plains. Between 1600 and 1800, evidence indicates the population was relatively stable; however, by 1921 it had expanded to 15.6 million, growing primarily along the central coastal plains and in the Mekong Delta. Since 1921 the population has increased steadily, reaching 54 million in 1982, 61 million in 1989, and approaching 75 million in 1997 (FN 1), making Vietnam one of Asia’s most densely populated countries. Current projections indicate that the population will reach 100 million by the year 2020 (see Figure 1).
Since Vietnam declared its independence from France in 1945, the country’s upland population has expanded rapidly through natural growth and migration. The population of upland areas is currently 25 million people, representing one-third of the country’s inhabitants. While war, policy changes, economic development, and the introduction of new technologies have all been linked to the steady decline of Vietnam’s natural forests, population expansion is arguably the fundamental, underlying cause of deforestation. Future policy strategies to stabilize the country’s upland forests and critical watersheds must consider how to accommodate a population that will continue to expand for at least several decades to come.
Fifty-eight percent, or 19 million hectares, of the 33 million hectares comprising the total land area of Vietnam is legally classified as forest under the jurisdictional authority of the state Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD). Ecologically speaking, only part of this area actually possesses forest vegetation. The total forest cover has declined steadily throughout the 20th century and the decline has accelerated in recent decades. Forest cover fell from 14 million hectares in 1943 to 9.3 million hectares in 1995, with over 10 million hectares covered by grasses, brush, or a few scattered trees. Only 3 million hectares are considered to possess well-stocked, healthy forests (see Figure 2).
While massive investments in lowland and midland tree planting have begun to stabilize national forest cover statistics, natural forests in upland regions are under mounting extractive pressure. Old growth natural forest is estimated to have fallen to 2 million hectares. Recent estimates indicate that deforestation is progressing at a rate of 100,000 to 200,000 hectares annually (FN 2). Deforestation is not taking place evenly across the country, however, and consequently it is important to discuss regional patterns. Vietnam can be divided into nine forestry regions, providing a framework to examine forest management conditions and needs (see Figure 3). The regions can be grouped according to whether they are in the densely populated Red River Delta or Mekong River Delta, or in coastal provinces, or in upland areas.
Red River and Mekong Deltas. The Red River Delta has an average population density exceeding 1,200 persons per square kilometer, making it one of the most populous agricultural regions in the world. In the Red River Delta, trees are only sparsely found along roads, canals, and in home gardens. Forests are rare. As indicated in Table 1, Red River forests cover only 3 percent of the land area in the delta, having changed little over the past 50 years. The Mekong Delta is not as densely populated, with 369 persons per square kilometer reported in 1992. Since population growth has occurred steadily over the past 50 years, forest cover has receded from 23 to 9 percent during this period. As centers of government for the majority Kinh cultural groups, the urban centers of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City and their four neighboring districts have been the focal points for the economic growth of the past decade, attracting approximately 80 percent of the $21 billion of foreign capital invested in Vietnam between 1988 and 1996 (FN 3).
Foreign capital investment levels in most of the outlying upland provinces are less than one percent of urban districts like Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City. The delta regions function as agricultural and industrial production centers dependent on the upland regions for forest and other natural resources, irrigation, and hydropower. The Hoa Binh Dam, which inundated some of the best agricultural land in the remote Northwest region, now supplies 75 percent of the nation’s hydropower. primarily to delta agricultural lands and urban centers. Imbalances in flows of capital and resources into the deltas from outlying regions raise equity concerns.
Beyond Ho Chi Minh City to the north and east are undulating hills, often terraced and planted to tree crops. These Eastern Midlands, sometimes referred to as the Eastern Nam Bot, include substantial rubber plantations, with farm forestry gaining popularity in response to growing urban and industrial markets. Further to the south is the Mekong Delta. This region has experienced rapid deforestation of its coastal mangroves, with little natural forest remaining. Natural forests, however, are being partially replaced with scattered groves of exotic species, largely pines, acacias, and eucalyptus. Between 1961 and 1985, farmers planted 1.3 billion fast growing trees, setting a national record. Foresters hope that the establishment of exotic plantations can increasingly meet industrial needs while taking pressure off the natural upland forests. Plantations are not always well received by farming communities, and as one researcher reports, the "widespread planting of eucalyptus has exacerbated soil erosion and led to land use conflicts as land designated for plantation was in many cases already in use by local people." (FN 4)
Coastal Plains. The coastal plains, located between the two major deltas, have also experienced steady population growth over the past century, with forests receding as agriculture and industry has expanded. While forest cover has declined by 50 percent since the end of World War II, the hill tracts bordering Laos, that rise up from the coastal plain, still maintain some intact, well-stocked old growth forest, covering approximately 35 percent of the total land area. The North Central Coast receives annual rainfall of 3,000 mm making it one of the wettest parts of the country, while allowing it to support rain forests rich in biodiversity. The dense forests of Nghe An in the north of the region, which border on the Red River Delta, are under heavy pressure due to their proximity to population and industrial centers. The South Central Coast possesses some of the country’s driest forests, with precipitation falling to 700 mm in Ninh Thuan Province. The North and South Central Coast regions possess 17 million people with rapidly developing industries, including wood-processing factories situated near Da Nang and other major sea ports. The regions’ forests, which possess 38 percent of the country’s wood volume, will likely continue to be a major source of industrial timber in the future (FN 5).
The Uplands. Beyond the delta and coastal zones are Vietnam’s uplands. In this report, the uplands will be subdivided between the "midlands" located from 15 to 200 meters elevation, and the "highlands" situated above 200 meters (FN 6). The four regions of the Northwest, North, and Northeast and Central Highlands together possess 87 percent of Vietnam’s upland. For over a century, the uplands have been the primary source of raw material for the commercial timber industry. Hundreds of publicly managed State Forest Enterprises (SFE) have operated logging and milling operations on nearly four million hectares of largely upland watershed over the past 50 years. In the Northwest, forests have been cleared through centuries of shifting cultivation and natural burning, leaving small fragments of natural forests and bamboo groves on ridgetops and steeper slopes. Logging in the Northwest intensified during the 1960’s and 1970’s to supply timber and generate money to fund the war and to accommodate lowland settlers. Many of the remaining old growth forests benefit from the protection of ethnic minority communities, although such indigenous management systems receive little recognition and are threatened by government policies and programs developed in distant administrative centers.
|
Region |
Population + (in millions) 1990
|
Forest Cover (% of area) |
Barren land+ (% of area) |
|
|
1943+ |
1995* |
|||
|
TOTAL |
71.6 |
42 |
28 |
34 |
|
Red River Delta |
14.1 |
3 |
3 |
27-33 |
|
Mekong Delta |
15.9 |
23 |
5 |
12-21 |
|
Eastern Midland |
8.9 |
54 |
24 |
23-34 |
|
North Central Coast |
9.7 |
66 |
35 |
40-44 |
|
South Central Coast |
7.6 |
62 |
35 |
42-49 |
|
Central Highlands |
3.0 |
93 |
57 |
25-32 |
|
Northeast |
5.7 |
50 |
20 |
27-33 |
|
North |
4.6 |
95 |
24 |
60-65 |
|
Northwest |
2.1 |
14 |
||
+ adapted from Thomas Sikor, "Decree 327 and the Restoration of Barren Land in the Vietnamese Highlands," in A. Terry Rambo et al., eds., The Challenges of Highland Development in Vietnam (Honolulu: East-West Center, 1995), p. 146.
* 1995 forest cover data provided by the Forest Inventory and Planning Institute, MARD.
In the densely populated Red River Delta virtually all available land is used for agriculture. Growing market demands are stimulating tree planting on the fringes of the delta. (photo: Poffenberger)
With the ease of water transport, wood-processing industries are expanding along the riverways of the Central Coast. (Photo: Poffenberger)
Deforestation is also widespread in the North and Northeast where a growing rural population, which now exceeds 10 million, remains heavily dependent on subsistence use of forest lands and products, often competing with industrial demands. Estimates of forest cover for the mountainous north in 1943 range from 50 to 95 percent of total land area, while currently most provinces have between 10 to 25 percent of the area under forest. Demand for fuelwood, pulp, and industrial timber has accelerated tree plantation establishment in areas with viable market access; however, such activities are primarily located in the midlands within 100 kilometers of Hanoi. Market demands from the Mekong and Red River deltas push unsustainable and illicit felling.
The Central Highlands possess the nation’s best and most extensive forests: 42 percent of Vietnam’s total forest cover and its most valuable timber reserves. While population densities are still relatively low, migrant and industrial pressures have driven rapid deforestation in this region. Scores of State Forest Enterprises and resettlement programs were initiated in the 1970’s, accelerating timber extraction and land clearing as millions of lowland Kinh moved into the region, competing with indigenous Ede, Bana, and Jarai populations for access to resources. As recently as the 1960’s, up to 90 percent of the Central Highlands possessed natural forest cover. However, the forests had receded 57 percent by 1995, with much of the cleared land classified as barren (FN 7).
Given the demographic, economic, and cultural variation within the nation, government planners in Vietnam will need to create forest policies that are responsive to this regional diversity and that can fulfill varied local and national requirements. In the past, government planners sought to develop policy instruments that provided uniform strategies to foster growth, however, their success has often been limited to regions with enabling characteristics such as road networks, markets, industries, and other support services. Policies developed by lowland Kinh planners are sometimes in conflict with the cultures and resource use traditions of ethnic minorities.
In the precolonial era, the lowland Kinh courts maintained agreements with some upland minority groups, as did the French colonial government, to facilitate trade in certain forest products and to recruit tribal men for military service. While trade and military contacts between upland communities and lowland governments existed over the centuries, until the end of World War II life in the remote upland watersheds of Vietnam followed the cultural traditions of the ethnic minority inhabitants.
During the colonial period, while most of Vietnam’s upland forest areas were legally claimed by the State, the French colonial government had little operational control over these forest resources, except in upland areas selected for commercial enterprises. According to Nguyen Van Thang, "the ownership of forests and forest land remained in the hands of the rural communities who controlled their use by customary law. Boundaries were elaborately defined by these communities, with some lands available for cultivation and others for preservation as forests." (FN 8)
Prior to 1954, most of the upland regions of Vietnam were sparsely inhabited by over 50 ethnic minority groups practicing traditional systems of land use. Some communities, like the Tai of the Da River, lived along mountain rivers practicing irrigated padi cultivation and aquaculture. The Tai and many other cultural communities were essentially sedentary, often inhabiting the territory for centuries. Other ethnic minorities, like the Hmong, lived on higher slopes, relying on long rotation or swidden agriculture, moving their settlements periodically. As populations grew, these groups came into closer contact. Tribal governance structures and customary laws predominated as methods for managing resources and arbitrating conflicts.
After independence in 1954, industrial timber production was placed under the authority of public corporations (State Forest Enterprises), with other public forest lands administered by provincial, district, and commune-level government offices. Traditional forest management systems received limited recognition under new laws in both the northern and southern parts of the country. Since the late 1980’s, however, State Forest Enterprises have been de-emphasized and are being replaced by policies supporting privatization, especially at the household level. In many situations, private household management of woodlots has led to improved productivity.
Between 1958 and 1962, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam began nationalizing upland forests in north and northwestern parts of the country. This process was extended to the south after the unification of the country in 1975. According to national policies of the period, upland areas were perceived by planners to be "wasteland" or "wilderness." More recently the terms "barren land" or "land not yet in use" have become more common. Ethnic minorities continue to be viewed as "backward and superstitious" people who need to be integrated with the national socialist orientation and the dominant lowland Kinh majority.
A number of resettlement policies and operational strategies were implemented, often similar in concept to the transmigration programs of neighboring Indonesia. The thrust of the strategies involved moving Kinh people from the densely populated lowlands into the uplands. This achieved the dual objectives of bringing in a labor force to exploit the natural resources of the area and to facilitate national integration by exposing upland cultures to those from the lowland delta areas. Under the New Economic Development Zone policy of the 1960’s and 1970’s, approximately 4 million people were resettled, mostly into the Da River and, after 1975, the Central Highlands. The nationalized forest land was placed under the management of SFEs.
The construction of roads into the uplands regions facilitated the flow of people from the lowlands. Traditional institutions of ethnic minorities, considered backward by cadres from lowland Kinh groups, were replaced with new social organizations like the Farmer’s Associations, Women’s Union and Youth Brigades.
In 1968, the Department of Fixed Cultivation and Sedentarization was established with the objective of resettling the upland ethnic minorities in areas where they could be brought under the formal governance systems of the state. The policy also intended to eliminate rotational agriculture systems (swidden or "slash and burn") which were viewed as destructive to forests and low in productivity.
By the 1980’s, of Vietnam’s 33 million hectares of total land area, 19 million hectares had been legally classified as state forest land. Publically managed companies (SFEs) held over 4 million hectares, and conducted logging operations on 150,000 hectares each year, rapidly exploiting them for commercial timber production. Generating 15 million cubic meters of industrial logs and fuelwood annually, the timber sector contributed substantially to the national economy. Exports alone, which typically represent only 10 percent of the national market in timber products, generated US$140 million in 1991 (FN 9). Yet the costs to the environment were significant. Existing national forest cover declined from 42 percent in 1943, to 36 percent in 1973, and finally to only 23 percent by 1991. Currently, old growth natural forest is present on only 6 percent of Vietnam’s land area (FN 10). By the mid-1980’s, the failure of SFE and resettlement programs to sustain productive forests and protect watersheds created growing concern among policy makers. There was an emerging consensus among Vietnamese political leaders that the forestry sector, like other economic arenas, needed greater household involvement. Many SFEs were continually running at a loss, while cooperatives were collapsing.
The decision to allow households to play a greater role in rural development was a response to these difficulties, and was part of the fundamental change in policy that began in the early 1980’s and gained momentum under the banner of the "Doi Moi" (Renovation) program. Change manifested itself in governmental decisions to begin to scale down all state enterprises and collectives, while gradually allowing the private sector a greater control of industry, and household management of much of the agricultural economy. The government, nonetheless, continues to see a prominent role for the state in guiding the economy. At the same time, state enterprise managers with powerful patrons are also reluctant to lose control during this economic transition. While state enterprises were told to release 95 percent of their employees and facilitate their transition into the private sector, managers of public companies continue to control the growing flow of investments. It is estimated that 95 percent of the foreign investments entering Vietnam are channeled through state enterprises. In fact, state enterprises "now account for almost 45 percent of Vietnam’s GDP, up from 32 percent in 1991, and 25 percent in the late 1980’s." (FN 11)
Emerging from a long struggle with the French in 1954 and with the United States in the mid-1970’s. Vietnamese leaders struggled to formulate policies to reunify the nation and improve the standard of living. Emerging strategies reflected the prevailing socialist values of the Vietnamese Communist Party and the cultural perspective of the dominant Kinh ethnic majority of the lowland deltas. Vietnam’s leaders saw the uplands as a "new frontier for national development...underpopulated areas containing immense pools of untapped natural resources and vast areas of unutilized lands" (FN 12). It was believed that only labor, capital, and new technologies needed to be invested to release the immense productive potential of the uplands.
However, in structuring policies for the uplands, the largely lowland Kinh planners were confronted by the confusing diversity of some 50 ethnic minority groups, each with their own language, political institutions, and agroeconomic systems. Ethnic minority norms and values that differed from those of Kinh were often viewed as "backward" (FN 13). The diverse array of long rotation agriculture and settlement movement patterns, often well adapted to upland forest regeneration and bionutrient recycling processes, were viewed as examples of inefficient production systems and of ignorance.
The low fertility soils of much of the uplands required long fallow cycles, a reality reflected in the use practices of Vietnam’s ethnic minorities. However, government planners, primarily familiar with the highly intensive farming systems of the rich alluvial deltas, rejected the viability of such upland agro-ecosystems viewing them as wasteful and environmentally destructive. To combat them, "sedentarization" policies were implemented to move communities of swidden farmers into permanent settlements and to encourage them to adopt fixed cultivation practices. Three million shifting cultivators were targeted for participation in the program.
The planners’ view of the uplands as a frontier area ripe for development has persisted. Indeed, mineral resources are present. But, the government increasingly recognizes the fragility of the uplands environment. Concern over the continuing loss of natural forests resulted in a 1991 ban on the export of unprocessed logs. The increase in "barren" land from 3 million hectares in 1943 to about 12 million hectares in 1995 or nearly 40 percent of the nation’s land area has led to a host of environmental restoration programs. These include new forest laws on resource protection and the formulation of a multisector government program with a cost of VND9,000 billion (US$820 million) during the coming five year plan (FN 14).
Planners are increasingly aware of how upland forest loss threatens the economic development of the lowland deltas and coastal plains. The ancient threat of downstream flooding in the Red River Delta and-the disturbance of irrigation waters to fertile rice-growing areas is now combined with the possibilities of electrical brown-outs to rapidly expanding urban-industrial centers. The Hoa Binh dam, located in the Northwest uplands, supplies half the nation’s electricity. Powering factories in the distant South, it is expected to have its productive life reduced from an estimated 100 to 300 years to only 50 years due to the extraordinary rate of reservoir sedimentation caused by deforestation and subsequent high level soil erosion (FN 15).
While the Kinh people comprise 87 percent of Vietnam’s population, in the mountainous interior including the Northeast, North, Northwest and Central Highlands, ethnic minority communities often represent the majority population, especially outside administrative townships and district and provincial capitals. Tenure systems, technologies, and rotational lengths vary widely among the 52 ethnic minorities living in highland areas, which comprises two-thirds of the national territory. Forty-six of the ethnic groups utilize a variety of shifting cultivation systems, requiring a careful linking of agriculture and forest resource use practices (FN 16).
Each ethnic community possesses its own institutions, leaders, rules, and rights for managing forest and agricultural lands and water resources. Many ethnic minorities specialize in the propagation, collection, processing and marketing of forest products. For example, Dzao communities in the Northwest specialize in the collection of medicinal plants, cinnamon, and lacquer. Many Hmong villagers gather and process high quality bamboo, canari, and rattan, while the Khmer, who live in the forests of the South, collect aromatic oil from the melaleucu forests, honey, and other high value products from the aquatic mangrove forests.
Ethnic minority communities are under pressure from their own expanding populations. Migratory and semi-migratory peoples, like the Hmong and Dzao, are increasingly recognizing that opportunities to move are quickly decreasing. Forced to shorten rotation and lengthen cultivation periods, soil fertility is falling and crop yields declining in many areas. A cooperative research program between the Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Studies at Hanoi University and the East-West Center found that the average fallow period in a Tai village in Hoa Binh Province had fallen from ten years or longer to only one to two years, while farmers continued to plant for up to three years instead of for only one year.
This is also forcing a change in resource use systems. Nguyen Van Thang identifies ethnic minority farming systems in three broad categories: open cycle swidden cultivation, closed cycle swidden cultivation, and intensive paddy agriculture. Open cycle swidden traditionally relied on extensive tracts of forests, which are now increasingly unavailable. Farmers are moving towards closed cycle swiddening and intensified paddy and tree crop farming systems.
However, specific agricultural adaptations vary widely from farmer to farmer and from one valley to the neighboring watershed. Program managers attempting to "sedentarize" farmers face frustration, forcing national policy makers to confront the need to accommodate local agricultural strategies, and their individual market, capital, and technological requirements.
Expanding population pressures on upland forests are generating tension and conflict among lowland migrants and ethnic minority people. Resettlement programs have exacerbated tensions in some areas by intensifying competition for limited fertile lands. Kinh migrants, and prominent ethnic miniorities living in district towns and commune centers, are better positioned to benefit from land allocation programs in contrast to the poorer ethnic communities living in more remote watersheds. Yet scattered, forest dependent villagers are best positioned to protect the fragile uplands and rely most upon it for their survival. Clarifying resource use rights may help reduce tensions and allow for capital and labor investments leading to more intensive management. The process of clarifying forest management responsibilities must consider the historical usufruct rights of local communities. In Van Thang’s study of the Hmong and Dzao, the author found that:
Each community had its own sphere of territory, including land used as the place of residence and cultivation...Apart from the fixed rocky fields privately owned by individual households, the forest, mountains, streams and rivers were the common property of the community... The community prohibited or limited the exploitation of land or forests within its territory by persons from the outside-especially the utilization of virgin land covered by primary forests (FN 17).
Forest lands were subdivided into those used for cultivation, forests under exploitation for timber, and forest land forbidden for exploitation including upper slopes and ridge crests. Within the forest, households often held specific rights to certain precious woods, trees with bee nests, and herbs growing naturally. Such community management systems and traditional modes of use rights allocation to clans, extended families and households continue to receive little recognition under law and little reflection in emerging privatization schemes.
While sedentarization and resettlement programs are still given considerable attention by planners, forest management policies have increasingly emphasized privatization in the uplands as an alternative to state control. In 1991, a policy was passed to allow the Forest Protection Service, which functions under the People’s Committee at the Provincial and District offices, to contract households to manage forest lands providing them a fee of VND55,000 (US$5) per hectare (FN 18). With nearly 20 million hectares of forest land, a protection budget of $100 million annually would be required to fund management of the entire public forest estate. In the following chapter, Sikor examines this policy transition, exploring the effects of new forest allocation programs on resource productivity, particularly within the upland’s unique and diverse social contexts.
1. Griffith Feeney and Peter Xenos, "The Demographic Situation in Vietnam: Past, Present and Future," Population Series No. 289 (Honolulu, HI: East-West Center, 1992).
2. Nguyen Van Thang, "The Hmong and Dzao Peoples in Vietnam: Impact of Traditional Socioeconomic and Cultural Factors on the Protection and Development of Forest Resources," in Terry Rambo et al., eds., The Challenges of Highland Development in Vietnam (Honolulu, HI: East-West Center, 1995), p. 101.
3. Financial Statistics, "Investment by Region," The Vietnam Business Journal, December 1996, p. 16.
4. Chris R. Lang, "Problems in the Making: A Critique of Vietnam’s Tropical Forestry Action Plan," in eds. Michael J.G. Parnwell and Raymond Bryant, Environmental Change in Southeast Asia (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), p. 230.
5. Hans Warfvinge, "Forestry in Vietnam: An Introductory Guide," June 1992, p. 9.
6. This elevation-based distinction appears helpful in differentiating sociocultural and economic contexts. Jamieson notes that "the Vietnamese tend to use more than altitude to distinguish ‘mountainous’ areas from ‘midlands’ or ‘uplands.’ They consider isolation or remoteness, poverty, and level of development." (Personal communication from Neil Jamieson, December 2. 1997)
7. Statistics on forest cover in Vietnam vary depending on the characteristics or definition of forest cover. Data presented here were generated by the Forest Inventory and Planning Institute, MARD.
8. Nguyen Van Thang, "The Hmong and Dzao Peoples in Vietnam: Impact of Traditional Socioeconomic and Cultural Factors on the Protection and Development of Forest Resources," in Terry Rambo et al., eds., The Challenges of Highland Development in Vietnam (Honolulu, HI: East-West Center, 1995).
9. Hans Warfvinge, "Forestry in Vietnam: An Introductory Guide," June, 1992 p. 13.
10. Nguyen Huy Dung, "Country Report on Vietnam," 5th Asia Forest Network Meeting, Surajkund, India, December 1996.
11. Personal communication from Neil Jamieson, December 1996.
12. Terry Rambo, "Perspectives on Defining Highland Development Challenges in Vietnam: New Frontier or Cul-De-Sac?," in Terry Rambo et al., eds., The Challenges of Development in Highland Vietnam (Honolulu, HI: East-West Center, 1995) p. 21.
13. Terry Rambo, "Defining Highland Development Challenges in Vietnam," in Terry Rambo et al., eds., The Challenges of Development in Highland Vietnam (Honolulu, HI: East-West Center, 1995), pp. 25-27.
14. Vietnamese News Agency release, Hanoi, 26 October, 1997, reported by the British Broadcasting Corporation.
15. Mark Poffenberger et al., eds., Linking Government with Community Resource Management, Research Network Report 9 (Berkeley, CA: Asia Forest Network. 1996), p. 18.
16. Nguyen Van Thang, "The Hmong and Dzao Peoples in Vietnam: Impact of Traditional Socioeconomic and Cultural Factors on the Protection and Development of Forest Resources," in Terry Rambo et al., eds., The Challenges of Highland Development in Vietnam (Honolulu, HI: East-West Center, 1995).
17. Nguyen Van Thang ( 1995) p. 112-113.
18. At the time this study was undertaken (1993-1996), the exchange rate was VND 11,000 to US$1.