I’m now in Quang Nam, trying to learn something about Tre Gai, among other things. Tre Gai is a local species of bamboo that is used primarily in the South of the country for some nice export quality furniture and home construction. There’s a lot of it in Quang Nai, and no some much in Quang Nam. One of the problems of Tre Gai is that it is a high quality bamboo—and seems to fetch a decent price—but is hard to gather and grows in small batches. Quite unlike Luong in Thanh Hoa, which is probably closer to a crop than an NTFP.

I’m also running into the most typical of difficulties when speaking with District officials here – when I ask about prices of bamboo, they simply respond that it is illegal to gather and sell in the District in order to protect the forest. Being illegal, of course, doesn’t stop a lot of traders, but makes them a little more difficult to contact.