Forest owners and nearby communities in Viet Nam’s natural forest environments, are developing innovative and evidence-based sustainable forest management methods. This project focuses on support for community researchers in their use of bioacoustics and local leadership for enhancing livelihoods while conserving and restoring natural forests.
Degraded forests reduce biodiversity and limit livelihoods
Forest degradation has substantially reduced the quality of natural forests across Vietnam. There are over 10 million hectares of natural forest in Vietnam, but at least 80% of them are now classified as poor quality.
Vietnam is of international conservation importance, harbouring around 10% of the world's species. The natural forests in Quang Ninh district contain many globally iconic species, and degradation of these forests is a major threat to this biodiversity.
Rural people's livelihoods depend heavily on forests, and degraded forests provide fewer benefits to local people and reduce environmental services, including less carbon storage.
In Vietnam, most of the forest is owned by the government. However, policymakers often underestimate the extent and severity of degradation and its impacts. New evidence of the effectiveness of different approaches and of the benefits of community forest management is urgently needed to support government policy.
New models of community-based forest management, supported by the government, provide an opportunity to demonstrate the benefits for local people, wildlife and climate.
Supporting communities in sustainable forest management
This project will support improved forest management by local communities. The communities will be supported in the sustainable management of about 1,800 hectares of natural forest that have been allocated to them for long-term management within Quang Ninh district.
Stakeholders will improve their knowledge and ability to support inclusive community-based forest management. The knowledge developed in this project be relevant for expanded community-based forest management across almost 80,000 hectares of natural forest in Quang Ninh district
The project will develop evidence and tools to enable communities to monitor and demonstrate the effectiveness and benefits of their management. The project will increase the capacity of a wide range of stakeholders to lead locally relevant research and monitoring to support solutions.
The project will enhance stakeholder support for community-based forest management and will deliver freely available Tools and approaches to scale-up community-based forest management in other parts of Quang Ninh.