This study looks at whether Vietnam could adopt the Payment for Environmental Services (PES) approach as part of its national conservation strategy. Using a pilot study in the country's uplands, it investigates how such a scheme might run and assesses its impact on the environment and on the local people's livelihoods. Through a review of current Vietnamese conservation practice, it assesses the barriers to the adoption of such schemes and the factors that might encourage their implementation. Results are promising. Interest and involvement in the pilot scheme was quite high despite the experiment's limited duration. The PES trial also had positive environmental impacts, including a reduction in soil erosion and the extraction of natural forest products. Because of a number of barriers to PES implementation, the study recommends that further PES trials be run to gain more experience and knowledge, before large-scale implementation is tried in Vietnam.