Fire wood lies at the heart of traditional communities. With our western life styles we have forgotten its value and place in our lives within a generation. As a child I enjoyed the optional scavenging in woods and along the shore

Roofs of houses designed to let the smoke out at the 'hip'

and then the satisfaction of the return with an evening's supply for the fire. It was optional, as in the U.K. we have long had the luxury of coal as our main fuel, an easy and more efficient fuel for daily use if not for the wider world. But whatever its source, heat with which to cook, is essential to our weak digestive systems, heat for washing and cleaning water desirable in colder regions, and heat for our bodies necessary if we must live far from the tropics. Where coal is not available, or not yet used, the time taken to gather and prepare wood is significant in many peoples' lives. This is clearly a chore some of the time as in the above picture, but when less arduous it forms part of a framework that supports the conviviality of less cluttered ways of life.
In Vietnam's northern district of Hà Giang wood is needed for heat, as well as cooking, for the land is high and the winters not unlike a mild Scottish November. Three months of the year are certainly made more comfortable with a fire to gather around. And snow here is seen down into the towns. Three years ago the streets of Dồng Văn, at Vietnam's northern tip, were white. Even Dồng Văn is still in the tropics (if only just at 23 degrees north) and snow cannot normally last the day. It is seen on the northern mountains regularly, for they reach well over 6,000 feet, but rather rarely does it come within touch of the average Vietnamese; and so its magic is preserved.

Transporting Wood in Tuyên Quang Province. Her bare feet will not appreciate the new stone surface that waits in the background for this road

The gathering of wood in a small country of 88 million people (a density 6 times greater than the world average) more or less finished off the destruction of the countryside so systematically begun by the bombing of Vietnam. While it was good that the Americans did stop directly killing civilians in 1975, they then used their economic strength to cripple the economy, inflicting starvation and deprivation on millions for the next 15 years. As a result the people had to take what they could in the way of basic resources and the forests disappeared to leave easily eroded soils. Those political developments testify to the resilience of governments which are part of the people versus governments that are not. For the socialist regime here has roots that are the people, and that democratic strength allowed them to fight the American invasion and win, and then rebuild their country (with no external help) from the years of ravaging started by the French and followed briefly by the Japanese, Koreans and British. Now that America has turned its attentions elsewhere, Vietnam is blossoming, and the country has topped the world poll for optimism about the future for five years – an emotion which is tangible in the streets and, despite the destruction, there is remarkably little hostility to the onetime aggressor. So much for the politics behind fire wood.

Natural Forests in Cao Bằng

The destruction of the forests was stopped about 10 years ago. Large concrete signs announce the importance of the trees and plants to human life and request that people protect them and not destroy them. The recovery will take time. Fast growing species such as Eucalyptus were planted and hopefully will help slow the problems of erosion, but they look so foreign, and are comparable to the dreaded Sitka spruce a monoculture that engulfs large tracts of Scotland. The finding of oil, which contributes $8 billion a year in foreign earnings, has helped ease the pressure on wood, and the drift to urbanisation has kept the rural population pressure in check.
Against this background wood is still the fuel of choice among Vietnam's ethnic minority groups. These peoples live almost exclusively in the hill regions of the country and their diversity is remarkable. Officially there are 54 different ethnic groupings here accounting for about 15% of the population. They are significantly poorer than the majority of the people who are Viet in ethnicity, and the proportion of their lives devoted to wood gathering is therefore the greater. For many country people, Viet and minority groups alike, there is little use of cash, nearly all their day to day living is provided by their own community's skills. Work is exchanged, or surpluses given, rather than cash generated. But some goods have to be bought and the markets provide the venue for cash exchanges, and scenes like the one in the picture to the left are common.

The morning market at Yên Minh in the north of Hà Giang

The neat bundles of wood here, in the far north of the country, are just like those carried by the woman in the picture at the top, although her home is two days journey to the south. The wood is cut to a length that fits the fires. In the houses of the type shown in the bottom picture there is one large room raised 6 to 8 feet above the ground on stilts with a floor made of woven bamboo and some planking if timber can be found. In the centre of the room there is a stone hearth on which is the open fire. The logs and branches are laid with one end in the fire and pushed inwards as necessary to make the fire revive. A trivet sits in the middle to hold a large pot. The rising smoke at the centre of the room escapes through the corners of the roof drawn which ever way the wind blows. It is curious that it is a comforting sight here in the tropics against the background of palms and bananas.
Fire wood: weaving its web from intercontinental politics to hearth