On April 14th & 15th 2021, a delegation of the European Union (EU) visited three districts of Hai Lang, Huong Hoa and Cam Lo of Quang Tri province, where the EU-funded project “Promoting sustainable partnerships between CSOs and enterprises for sustainable forestry management in the context of climate change” (PROSPER) has been implemented by MCNV and partners for over the past one year.
The field trip aimed to provide the EU Ddelegation and MCNV the insight of the first-year achievement of PROSPER via visits to various forest plantations, natural forests and plant nursery of Quang Tri Smallholder Forest Certification Group (SGCG) Association, and participating cooperatives, including pine and acacia plantation of Phu Hung Cooperative (Hai Le commune, Hai Lang district) and hi-quality acacia nursery of Keo Son cooperative (Cam Nghia commune, Cam Lo district).
During the field trip, the EU delegates met with leaders of SFCG sub-associations, community forest groups and households who were beneficiaries of the PROSPER project in Ho village (Huong Son commune), Chan May Eco Bio Agricultural Cooperative and Chenh Venh village (Huong Phung commune) in Huong Hoa district.
Leaders of these sub-associations and groups took the chance to brief the EU Ddelegation on the activities they have been participating in as part of the PROSPER project in the last one year, including: setting out sustainable forests management rules and regulations, forest patrol and audit in combination with forest nourishing, exploiting non-timber forest products, etc.
At the same time, representatives of the project beneficiaries shared with the EU delegates and MCNV about their action plans in the coming years, focusing on sustainable forest management and community livelihood development, expansion of the plantation area of tung trees (an indigenous plant with various economic potentials), participation in the sustainable tung oil supply chain, enhancing the community coordination in Forest Stewardship Council certification (FSC®) rattan and bamboo trade, eco- tourism, etc.
PROSPER, with a total value of EUR 800,000 (EUR 600,000 funded by EU and EUR 200,000 by MCNV), is implemented by MCNV and the SFCG Association of Quang Tri in the period of February 2020 – February 2023.
The project will assist 60 sub-associations of around 3,000 farmers who are household, cooperative and community forest owners. In the 3 years, the project will help 1,500 hectares of plantation forests achieve FSC® certificates and sustainable forests management will be applied on 600 hectares of natural forests.
After the first one year, despite the challenges brought about by COVID-19, various key activities of PROSPER has been successfully implemented, including: assisting the participation in the FSC forest certification to implement sustainable forest management, promoting sustainable supply chain of non-timber forest products, establishing an acacia nursery, expanding the area of forest plantation, facilitating access to the smartphone application of the SFCG Association for forest management, etc.
*Infographic: PROSPER first-year achievement
