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This policy brief provides a summary of an expert discussion forum convened on “Forestry in NDCs of Asia-Pacific countries: 2020 vision”. The forum was held on 17 June 2019 and organised as part of the 2019 Asia-Pacific Forestry Week (APFW) at the Green Climate Fund (GCF) office in Songdo, Republic of Korea.Eleven regional experts participated in the forum, representing views from multiple countries, as well as from key institutions across the Asia-Pacific region. This policy brief summarises the main discussions held during the consultation, which responded to a set of twelve questions designed to inform stakeholders on the potential role of forestry in achieving NDC goals in the Asia-Pacific region after 2020.

This policy brief provides a summary of an expert discussion forum convened on “Forestry in NDCs of Asia-Pacific countries: 2020 vision”. The forum was held on 17 June 2019 and organised as part of the 2019 Asia-Pacific Forestry Week (APFW) at the Green Climate Fund (GCF) office in Songdo, Republic of Korea.Eleven regional experts participated in the forum, representing views from multiple countries, as well as from key institutions across the Asia-Pacific region. This policy brief summarises the main discussions held during the consultation, which responded to a set of twelve questions designed to inform stakeholders on the potential role of forestry in achieving NDC goals in the Asia-Pacific region after 2020.

This is part of a series of info briefs produced in 2019 on the main lessons learned from Viet Nam's National REDD+ Programme. REDD+ has the potential to deliver social and environmental benefits that go beyond mitigating climate change, but REDD+ actions could also entail some potential risks.In order to minimize these risks, and at the same time enhance the potential benefits, seven safeguards, known as the “Cancun safeguards” (See Box 1) are in place that must be addressed and respected throughout the implementation of REDD+ actions. At the end of 2018, the Government of Viet Nam completed two key United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) requirements relating to safeguards: it submitted its first summary of information on safeguards, outlining how the country will address and respect the safeguards throughout REDD+ implementation, and also released an online safeguards information systems (SIS). Viet Nam became the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to complete the Warsaw Framework for REDD+ after fulfilling these safeguards requirements, which now make the country eligible to receive REDD+ results-based payments.

*This is part of a series of info briefs produced in 2019 on the main lessons learned from Viet Nam's National REDD+ Programme  The Cancun Agreements of 2010 (paragraph 71) request countries to develop a National Strategy (NS) or Action Plan (AP) for REDD+ implementation. Such a document is mandatory, if countries intend to become eligible for result-based payments. In recent years, many countries in the Asia-Pacific region, including Viet Nam, have developed what are generally referred to as National REDD+ Strategies. These Strategies are designed to direct policies and investments towards actions that will clearly contribute to climate change mitigation goals, through their impacts on forests. In other words, they are designed to address direct and indirect drivers of deforestation and forest degradation effectively. They are also expected to complement existing forestry strategies, such as Viet Nam’s Forestry Development Strategy (2006-2020), National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAP) and national socio-economic development plans.  Implementing a National REDD+ Strategy will often require many different practical interventions across the whole country. The more diverse a country is, the more varied these interventions will be, in order to suit different environmental, social and economic contexts and the different factors that drive forest loss and degradation, and prevent or discourage forest expansion and improvement. So, while a National REDD+ Strategy sets the overall objectives, targets and approaches, specific actions and interventions should ideally be planned and monitored at a more local scale.  When Viet Nam’s Forest Administration (VNFOREST) designed the UN-REDD Viet Nam Phase II Programme in 2012, it was proposed to tailor the broad provisions of the National REDD+ Action Programme (NRAP) according to conditions on the ground, thus developing Provincial REDD+ Action Plans (PRAPs) in each of the programme’s six pilot provinces. These would be aligned with existing provincial Social and Economic Development Plans (SEDPs), which follow a five-year planning cycle. Provincial SEDPs are used to generate provincial Land Use Plans and Forest Protection and Development Plans (FPDPs). PRAPs could therefore take current plans as a basis, identifying to what extent planned actions are already aligned with NRAP objectives.  In Viet Nam, a PRAP’s role is to operationalise the NRAP and its component Policies and Measures (PAMs) by tailoring PAMs to address both local-specific drivers of deforestation and forest degradation and barriers to expansion of forest enhancement activities. Developing PRAPs allows for more direct involvement of a wide range of provincial stakeholders, including sectors beyond forestry, in the planning process. This increases transparency, ownership and the social sustainability of REDD+ interventions. PRAP development recognises that, in order to be effective, REDD+ implementation must align with provincial planning processes. Ultimately, the results of PRAP implementation may also affect subsequent provincial planning cycles to bring about a transformational change in how forest landscapes are managed. 

Traditional therapeutic medicine in Viet Nam has a long history. Treatments based on medicinal plants are still often used in addition to, or even instead of, allopathic medicine by many Vietnamese. Viet Nam is home to an estimated 12,000 species of high-value plants, of which 10,500 have been identified. Approximately 36 percent of those are known to have medicinal properties. Herbal and aromatic plants are used to make soaps, bath solutions and medicines, such as balms for pain relief, and also supply modern pharmaceutical production chains. Since the mid-1990s, several once-abundant medicinal plants have been threatened with extinction from over-exploitation. In this respect, Viet Nam’s experience is similar to that of many other countries in the region, such as with blueberries in Mongolia and gaharu (agarwood or aloeswood) in Indonesia in the early 1990s. In Lao Cai and neighboring provinces, many fresh and processed products are sold domestically and to the Chinese markets just across the border, and demand is growing. As a result, what used to take the women only a few hours to collect, now requires several days of searching in the forests. Although Viet Nam has tremendous potential as a grower and producer of herbal medicine, it has gone from being an exporter to an importer of medicinal materials. Communities have become aware of the effects of forest destruction and over-exploitation and the dangers the “green goldmine” is facing. In 2017, Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc urged government agencies and actors nationwide to develop measures to protect and promote traditional herbal medicines. He affirmed that such medicines are a treasure of the country, which can contribute to poverty reduction. He asked for solutions to tackle challenges in value and marketing chains, lower risks of extinction of many rare herbal plants, and careful use of advanced technology. Alliances by non-government organizations (NGO), Forest Protection Departments and local pharmaceutical companies have responded to the call for action. Jointly with local people, they have developed species and area management plans, enhanced capacities and benefit flows from the forest to the people. These initiatives are supported by, and aligned with, the new Forestry Law of 2017. This Law specifically prioritizes forest allocation to ethnic communities who have customary use of forests and recognizes communities as forest owners for the first time. The alliances have also helped to set up cooperatives to assist in the marketing of products. When the UN-REDD Viet Nam Phase II Programme launched its pilot activities in Lao Cai province, it was the “green goldmine” that connected the issues of forest carbon, local livelihoods and forest land tenure, presenting a promising formula for sustainable forest management.

*This is part of a series of info briefs produced in 2019 on the main lessons learned from Viet Nam's National REDD+ Programme  While Viet Nam’s forest area has increased steadily over the last 30 years, forest degradation and deforestation in hotspots continue. The direct and indirect causes of these trends are diverse and complex. One indirect cause that until recently attracted little attention is weak inter-provincial coordination and collaboration. Transboundary forests are administered by departments based in two, three or more neighboring provinces. As provincial boundaries mark the territorial limits of administration, they can present loopholes that prevent law enforcement staff from following up on forest violations, such as illegal logging or forest conversion to agriculture. Tackling these loopholes requires inter-provincial collaboration to ensure seamless coverage of forest law enforcement efforts and thus enhance forest management and protection. Such collaboration also requires dedicated funding, which is rarely acknowledged.  To develop government capacity to reduce deforestation and forest degradation, the UN-REDD Viet Nam Phase II Programme strengthened inter-provincial cooperation between provincial Forest Protection offices to tackle law enforcement issues of a transboundary nature and to plug persistent loopholes. 

*This is part of a series of info briefs produced in 2019 on the main lessons learned from Viet Nam's National REDD+ Programme  This brief presents key issues that emerge from the assessment of stakeholder engagement and FPIC principles. It looks specifically into the extent to which guidelines, as the main tools, serve to provide possibilities for stakeholders who relate to, depend on, as well as manage the forest. This means that these guidelines are meant to guide stakeholder engagement through the entire process of planning, implementation, to monitoring and evaluation.  At the policy level, the UN-REDD Viet Nam Phase II Programme has taken several positive steps towards enhancing stakeholder engagement. First, it has been a challenge to develop one single set of common guidelines for the site level, SiRAP. This is an important accomplishment as it lessens the confusion about the directives for stakeholder engagement. Second, the Programme has largely been managed to make use of and build on the local governance and planning mechanism in which stakeholder engagement is integrated. This is done through, for instance, making use of the scope for participation in the grassroots democracy ordinance for the planning and implementing REDD+ packages at the site level. Third, the objective of awareness raising set by the Programme was met to some extent despite the challenges in bridging different understandings of the key concepts of stakeholder engagement. Fourth, the Programme’s guidelines leave some room for change and flexibility during implementation. This is built on a general realisation that stakeholder engagement is a learning process. Fourth, the guidelines highlighted vulnerable stakeholders and in particular women and ethnic minorities.  To accomplish stakeholder engagement and FPIC at site level is, however, an ambitious task, or rather, a long process. The attempt to integrate FPIC principle and benefit sharing pragmatically into one single document to guide stakeholder engagement adds to the challenge. The complex key elements of participation, transparency, accountability and representation will inevitably need contextualisation and adaptation at site level. For instance, to convey the full meaning of participation and adapt lessons into practice, which is central to engagement, take time and require changes in deep-rooted thinking and practices. Hence, formulating concise, contextual and concrete guidelines on stakeholder engagement and FPIC is a crucial, but difficult step in the process of accomplishing stakeholder engagement. The guidelines need to be short enough to be read and be useful, but still long enough to convey the meaning of key concepts and full value of stakeholder engagement. To add to the challenge, they need to be understood in a context very different from international principles and good practices from which they were written in the first place. Without a thorough understanding of what stakeholder engagement really means, there is a risk that stakeholder engagement and FPIC principles will only be respected on paper. Lastly, these challenges will inevitably increase for stakeholders from vulnerable groups who are weak in expressing their concerns such as women, ethnic minorities and other local communities living in or near the forest.

*This is part of a series of info briefs produced in 2019 on the main lessons learned from Viet Nam's National REDD+ Programme  Viet Nam is the second biggest coffee producer and exporter (after Brazil). Production in Viet Nam has steadily increased from 78,600 tons in 1990 to almost 1.77 million tons in 2017/18. There is no doubt that coffee is a significant contributor to Viet Nam’s rural economy. Its export value in 2018 was US $3.5 billion. While coffee in Viet Nam has been touted as a success story, there is also a downside to the considerable expansion of its production. The conversion of natural forests to coffee contributes significantly to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and thereby to global climate change. Today, coffee covers an area of about 650,000 ha. A continuation of this trend will make it more difficult to achieve the target of reducing GHG emissions by 8 percent by 2030, which is Viet Nam’s commitment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).  When the UN-REDD Viet Nam Phase II Programme selected Lam Dong province (in the Central Highlands region) as one of its pilot provinces, the coffee sector as a driver of deforestation was squarely in mind. Turning this driver into a REDD+ potential would require addressing the carbon as well as the socio-political challenge revolving around forestland tenure. The Programme reviewed options for forest restoration by intercropping forest trees and examined opportunities for and constraints to the adoption of coffee agroforestry in Lam Dong province, where coffee is grown on about 162,000 ha.