During a visit to REDAA-supported projects in Viet Nam and Cambodia in March 2025, REDAA staff and FCDO colleagues witnessed how partners and local communities are laying the foundations – both literally and figuratively – for landscape restoration activities.
The team behind ICRAF Viet Nam is supporting farmers in the northern mountains of the Lao Cai province, Viet Nam, to adopt agroforestry as an approach to restore their degraded home gardens, produce more and better crops and improve livelihoods. With advice from ICRAF Viet Nam, farmers have dug planting holes for new fruit trees, the species chosen based on soil conditions and their own needs and preferences.
This context-specific agriculture method is expected to enhance incomes and food security, making households more resilient now that unpredictable weather events make local farming more difficult.
REDAA also spoke to the project’s communications officer, Minh Nguyen, about the challenges he’s encountering working with remote communities, where some farmers speak vernacular languages and many face competing day-to-day pressures. “We have to translate complex terms into something relatable,” he explained. “For example, we wouldn’t say ‘soil health’, we’d say: ‘when you plant a tree in your home garden, that soil will affect the tree in a positive or negative way.’”
Meanwhile, Cambodia Indigenous Peoples Organization (CIPO) and partners are working with Indigenous communities around Yeak Laom lake, Ratanakiri province, Cambodia, to collect data on the benefits of reintroducing traditional agricultural practices. Field teams of local people trained as researchers are surveying households about their experience using Indigenous methods and how these compare to chemical-based modern approaches. People from the Yeak Laom community are already sharing insights via the Telegram app – like composting methods or planting tips.
The ultimate goal of the project is to generate evidence that can support advocacy and influence government policies that favour Indigenous land governance.
“We want to show communities the benefit of traditional practices and raise awareness among authorities so they can support communities to implement them,” said the deputy leader of the Yeak Laom lake committee, Hean Sovann.
While it’s still early days for both projects, it’s already clear how these communities are laying the groundwork for what locally led nature restoration looks like in action.