Japan Promotes Sustainable Forestry in Dien Bien
Thursday, June 10, 2010 (GMT+7)
Recently in Hanoi, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Dien Bien province people's committee signed an agreement on technical cooperation in sustainable management of northwestern riverhead forests.
The five-year, US$5.5 million JICA-funded project is the first JICA forest management project in Dien Bien province. The Vietnam Economic News' Nguyen Tien Dung spoke with project senior consultant Egashira Eiji to learn more about the project.
Why did JICA decide to implement its project in Dien Bien?
The statistics show that Dien Bien has forest coverage of 39 percent, which is roughly the national average. Half of forests in Dien Bien grow well, while the remaining are regressive forests and bare hills. This low provincial forest coverage rate reveals that the forest quality in Dien Bien is sub-par.
In Vietnam, JICA has been focusing on providing assistance to three regions - the northwestern region, Tay Nguyen (the Central Highlands) and the Mekong Delta. Before the project began, JICA operations in the northwestern region were minor. Donor assistance for Dien Bien was small.
These factors were primary in helping JICA see the need to do something for the province and we finally decided to assist Dien Bien in sustainable management and development of forests.
Dien Bien is a strategic location, as it is home to forests in the riverhead of three major rivers and plays an important role in protecting land and landscapes in the region.
Dien Bien province-JICA signing ceremony
The province has a plan to transform one third of its protected forests into productive forests by 2020. This plan shows Dien Bien's objectives related to forest development and exploitation, while the transformation would have both negative and positive impacts on forest protection and exploitation in the region. This transformation will make forests more beneficial to locals, but if the transformation is not well managed it will cause forests to be overused and make sustainable development impossible.
It is time for us to start the project in Dien Bien.
Three Japanese specialists will be coming to Vietnam in August 2010 to work for the Dien Bien-based project. What are their priorities while there?
One of the first things they will do after coming to Dien Bien is develop relations with provincial 
authorities and introduce the provincial authorities to the project's objectives. Also, they will conduct a survey to find a project site, learn about locals' demands and seek locals' agreement before setting up a plan for forest development and livelihood assurance.
They will also review experiences of previous similar projects in Dien Bien and research technical guidance and institutions that are integral for the project's success.
A five-year period is a rather long time, so viable locations for the project will be researched and chosen carefully. If implemented measures have not brought expected results, they will be adjusted and once successful, applied in neighboring provinces like Son La and Lai Chau.
How will experiences of other JICA projects, including projects in Hoa Binh, Kon Tum and other provinces, be applied to the Dien Bien-based project?
The Kon Tum project promoted forest management between 2005 and 2008 and helped construct community-based forest protection and management plans in a number of villages and hamlets in the province.
JICA has plans to provide guidelines for people in Hoa Binh province to grow certain crops and improve techniques to restore natural forests through breeding some local varieties, some high quality.
Each project has its own specifications. Regarding the Dien Bien-based project, apart from strengthening capabilities of participating parties through on-the-job training, JICA will implement a project to improve agricultural and forestry training capability of the Northwest University. We hope that these will be combined to increase JICA's efficiency in Dien Bien and the northwestern region as a whole.
Could you tell us about the project's livelihood solution?
The livelihoods of most people in Dien Bien much depends on forests, so locals cut trees even when they are not yet mature, and this will make sustainable development of forests impossible.
The project will encourage locals not to exploit timber trees but products like bamboo of different kinds while assisting them in increasing agricultural product productivity.
We now have numerous plans, but it is first important to research the feasibility of each plan and learn about locals' actual demands.
The project's main objective is to combine forest use solutions and substitute livelihood methods to prolong the forest lifespan circle to 10-20 years, protect forests and assure livelihood balance./.
Source: VEN