Key Achievements in Quang Nam
Quang Nam Province is located in Vietnam’s central coast region with 680,806 hectares (ha) of total forested area, accounting for 60 percent of the province’s natural area. Although there is significant potential to benefit from the forest, the province faces forest degradation and deforestation. Together with the provincial government, USAID’s Sustainable Forest Management Project has been implementing a wide range of interventions to address these issues. In 2023, the Project helped develop seven Community Based Forest Management (CBFM) Plans and three Community Forest Management (CFM) Plans covering a total of 16,039 ha of forest and organizing hundreds of forest patrols. This contributed to better forest protection and management for 11 communities. The Project also helped improve livelihoods for forest dependent communities by promoting four value chains: rattan, bamboo, and leaves (RBL), medicinal plants, betel nut, and acacia. To implement these value chains, the Project signed nine partnership agreements with local conservation friendly enterprises. As a result, nearly 10,000 people benefited from the cooperation and USD 688,000 was mobilized to support the value chains. The Project also improved production forest management practices by engaging with Hiep Thuan Cooperative and Thien Hoang Company to implement the following interventions: i) capacity building on sustainable forest management and forest certification, resulting in the formation of 12 smallholder groups (584 households); ii) development of two SFM plans; iii) implementation of forest mapping; iv) addressing audit-identified issues for forest certification with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC); and v) developing a plantation forest insurance mechanism, and completing the biomass supply chain. As a result, Hiep Thuan Cooperative received FSC certification to sustainably manage 1,195 ha of acacia forest managed by 221 smallholders. Thien Hoang Company is currently working towards the FSC certification of 3,000 ha in 2024.
Protecting forest owners and households from natural disasters with risk mitigation mechanisms.
The effects of climate change are present in central Vietnam, including in Quang Nam, causing enormous damage to plantation forests. The current lack of affordable insurance schemes for farmers to purchase for coverage is a major obstacle to implementing sustainable forest management and developing large dimension timber forests. Hiep Thuan Cooperative was established in 2017 with 15 cooperative members, including farmers from neighboring communes in Quang Nam province. The Cooperative recognized that farmers’ plantations needed technical solutions to mitigate risks from natural disasters. The Cooperative established a pilot model on risk mitigation for plantations to help members and associated households mitigate losses from natural disasters. With technical assistance from the Project, Hiep Thuan Cooperative established the ‘Regulation on Risk Mitigation Fund’ in August 2022 to mobilize funds from local forest owners, cooperative members, bank deposit interest, assistance from organizations, businesses and individuals, assistance from the State, and assistance from development projects.
Through technical, production, and financial solutions, the risk of damage from natural disasters and forest fires will be minimized, building the trust and confidence of forest owners to plant large timber forests to meet the cooperative’ business strategy (and environmental target) of 1,500 ha of sustainable plantations by 2027. This risk mitigation mechanism will motivate members and the community to prolong the plantation rotation, which will contribute to increasing carbon sequestration and will create an opportunity to help small forest owners (farmers) improve sustainable plantation management practices, leading to improved livelihoods as well as social and environmental benefits.