This study examined the driving forces of mangrove change and compared mangrove forest management mechanisms in coastal districts in Hai Phong city, Vietnam. Survey data was used to ascertain the driving forces of mangrove change. The market price approach was used to analyze how local people responded to mangrove forest conservation. The results indicated that implementation of mangrove management instigated by the authorities, community or local people has affected mangrove change. The main driving factor of mangrove degradation in Hai Phong was over expansion of shrimp aquaculture. In Trang Cat commune, Hai An district, the average size of shrimp ponds where expansion was controlled by the local people, was 12.81 hectares. This number was over 53 times higher than in Bang La commune, Do Son district, which was mainly converted from salt ponds. Extensive aquaculture in the former case was the main method of farming which provides low net benefits while the improved shrimp culture in the latter case brings higher net benefits. Mangrove plantation programs funded by the Japanese organizations helped the poor guarantee their lives in Bang La. In Trang Cat, the poorer households would like to participate in mangrove conservation more than richer families. Nevertheless, the upper and rich families in Bang La engaged in mangrove plantation programs did more extensively than the middle and the poor did. Mangrove rehabilitation programs in Bang La have been successfully conducted on account of community-based forest management in cooperation with local authorities. The failure to convert shrimp ponds from mangrove forests was clearly recorded in Trang Cat. This commune needed to replant mangrove in abandoned shrimp ponds and follow the mangrove management mechanism in Bang La.
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