Community and Natural resources

After nearly five months of project implementation and nearly three months after provision of seedlings and young chickens, two types of environmental-friendly economic models of the club members achieved some encouraging results.

With the sponsorship of Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung (RLS), Center for Development of Community Initiative and Environment (C&E) conducted a survey in seven mountainous communes where there is a large number of ethnic minority people in four mountainous districts of two provinces of Thua Thien Hue and Quang Nam from February to April.

For recent decades, along with the rapid growth of economy, Vietnam and other countries in the world have suffered from environment degradation and losses of natural resources, especial forestry resources. Protecting existing natural forest areas in Vietnam is a big task that requires much effort from forestry and other relevant organizations. Although there are many policies and institutions for this purpose, natural forests have been destroyed rapidly. It is clear that the efforts of the state management bodies are not enough. It is important that local people should participate in and contribute to natural forest protection.

For recent decades, along with the rapid growth of economy, Vietnam and other countries in the world have suffered from environment degradation and losses of natural resources, especial forestry resources.

Today the Governor of the State Bank of Viet Nam, Nguyen Van Giau and the President of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Haruhiko Kuroda, signed a US$1.38 billion financial assistance deal set to help increase access to clean water, conserve threatened forests and ease urban gridlock throughout Viet Nam.

On May 17, in Kim Loan commune, 72 kilometers far from Cao Bang, VACNE in collaboration with Cao Bang Association for Conservation of Nature & Environment and Ha Lang District People’s Committee held the ceremony to honor a thousand-year old “Nghien” tree growing on the way to Lung Tung village as Vietnam Heritage Tree.

A workshop on “People right-based natural forest management” was held by the Center for Development of Community Intinitive (C&E), the Centre for Education and Communication of Environment (CEACE) and the Forestry Science – Technology Association of Thua Thien Hue province under the sponsor of Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation- Germany, coordination to organize. This workshop objective is to create opportunities for exchanges and sharing of information and experience among communities, state management agencies and other stakeholders, and then synthesize and come up with appropriate recommendations and solutions for improvement of policies, contributing to sustainable forest management in Vietnam.

Environmental protection and management are part of heritage management and conservation and awareness and actions of managerial agencies are the key to environmental sustainability. These were core messages of the first training course for managerial personnel in Yen Tu Historical and Beauty Site in June 2009.

DaNang, 2-6/8/2008
Context:

Sida Environmental Fund has been supported numerous local communities in many part of the country to implement their environmental initiatives to improve their local urgent environmental problems, raising environmental awareness. In this process, many local people groups have organized themselves into grass root environmental organizations under many forms such as the Green Volunteer, the Nature Care, The Green Ocean and many others. However, in previous SEF project mechanism, there was very limited resources have been used to actually support the formation and improving their organizational and advocacy capacity in their effort to protect environment.

The linkages Supporting community environmental protection initiatives