Key Achievements in Hoa Binh
In 2023, the USAID Sustainable Forest Management Project carried out many activities to comprehensively support forest management and development in Hoa Binh province. Those activities resulted in positive outcomes for forest owners, communities, conservation-friendly enterprises, and other stakeholders in the province. Through targeted capacity building, the Project established 19 Community-based Forest Management Boards and 21 Community Forest Patrolling Teams. As a result, 7,131 hectares of natural forest (both protection and production confident in production and in 21 communities of Da Bac, Mai Chau, and Lac Son districts are now well managed by community patrolling teams. To improve production forest management practices, the Project helped establish 131 famers’ groups in 131 villages of 19 communes with 4,414 members total (90% ethnic minorities). These smallholder farmers’ groups were granted sustainable Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certificates for an area of 6,106 ha of acacia plantation reaching about 16,000 beneficiaries. The Project supported the plantation of about 500 ha of new acacia from seedlings, engaging 360 households. For International Day of Forests on March 21, 2023, the Project organized a successful tree plantation event with the participation of more than 250 representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Hoa Binh’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, USAID, youth unions, local households, and mass media to plant 500 trees (Michelia tonkinensis) and to hand over one million acacia seedlings to local forest growers. To reduce pressure on forest resources, the Project supported 16 cooperative groups, five cooperatives and their 836 member households by enhancing the rattan-bamboo-leaves and medicinal plant value chains. The Project also increased functionality of law enforcement systems for forest crimes, developing policies and regulations to support forest protection in the province. As a result, the province piloted the innovative new Forest Violations Database Management System (FVDMS)—a digital tool to comprehensively track, monitor, and manage forest violation crimes— and developed six policies and regulations this year. The Project’s targeted activities in Hoa Binh led to 13,630 ha of forest being under improved management.