02/03/2021
In recent years, the Vietnamese economy has had strong developments, but such developments have changed the natural landscape. Therefore, the implementation of the project “Integrating natural resource management and biodiversity conservation goals into socio-economic development planning and management of biosphere reserves in Việt Nam” (BR Project) is of greater importance in promoting a management approach in harmony with nature. On the occasion of launching BR Project, Environment Magazine had an interview with Mrs. Hoàng Thị Thanh Nhàn - Deputy Director of Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Agency - Deputy Director of BR Project.
VEM: Madame, it can be said that the BR project implementation is of great significance in the context that Việt Nam is facing pressures from development activities and natural disasters. Could you please briefly introduce the BR Project?
Mrs. Hoàng Thị Thanh Nhàn: In recent years, Vietnam's economy is in the process of rapid development, the construction of new infrastructure, expansion of the transport network, tourism development... lead to changing landscape, increasing threats to ecosystem services (ecosystems) and biodiversity (biodiversity).
On that basis, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) cooperated with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and other stakeholders to successfully develop and approve the BR Project funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) through UNDP. The project aims to support completion of the legal framework for the protection and management of the biosphere reserve; Strengthening the efficiency of the management of the three BRs participating in the Project, namely BR of Đồng Nai, Đồng Nai Province; The BR of Cù Lao Chàm, Quảng Nam Province; BR of Tây Nghệ An, Nghệ An Province, through capacity building activities, supporting the implementation of integrated resource management approach; sustainable forest rehabilitation and management; support community livelihood models to reduce pressure on natural resources and manage biodiversity conservation.
BR Project Inception workshop
The long-term solution proposed by the Project is to help Việt Nam bring the issue of biodiversity conservation and protection into planning and management of landscape, forest and marine landscape; At the same time, these contents are also included in the main economic and manufacturing sectors to shift to a more sustainable and equitable development. To achieve this, actions should be taken to strengthen capacity, coordination between the national and provincial levels on natural resource management, biodiversity conservation, prevention and management of alien invasive species.
VEM: Could you tell us, integrating natural resource management and biodiversity conservation goals into socio-economic development planning in Việt Nam today?
Mrs. Hoàng Thị Thanh Nhàn: BR is an area with marine or terrestrial ecosystems that helps promote harmonious solutions between biodiversity conservation and sustainable development of these areas. BR has three main functions: conservation, economic development and research and education. From 2000 to now, Việt Nam has had 9 nationally recognized BRs with a total area of more than four million hectares (accounting for 12.1% of the country's natural area) including marine and terrestrial areas: Cần Giờ (2000), Đồng Nai (2001), Cát Bà (2004), Red River Delta (2004), Kiên Giang (2006), Tây Nghệ An (2007), Cù Lao Chàm - Hội An (2009), Cape Cà Mau (2009) and Lang Biang (2015).
However, to date the Vietnamese legal and policy framework has not yet supported the management of biosphere reserves, helping to combine conservation and production management, and implementing management at the overall landscape level including core, transition and buffer zones. In Việt Nam, Biosphere Reserve (BR) is a relatively new concept that most decision-makers do not fully understand and fully recognize or has not been integrated into policy making on conservation and development at the national level and provincial level. Similarly, at the sub-national level, there is no clear responsibility for the planning and management of the Biosphere Reserve. Although each BR has a management board, there is no uniform regulation for the BR to allow the Management's efforts to be integrated into the management of different organizations and industries. This leaves the biosphere reserves in Vietnam currently vulnerable due to lack of landscape-level planning, lack of monitoring and evaluation, and the lack of integration of biodiversity conservation or protected area management (PA) into the socio-economic development plan and processes, leading to a conflict between conservation and development.
Currently, the management of BRs in Việt Nam has not yet implemented the integration of planning, zoning, resource use and other measures for the entire landscape of the archipelago, including the core zone for conservation, buffer zone and transition zone. Most of the domestic BRs are conflicts between conservation and development, as many people living in the BR are poor and depend on livelihood practices such as logging, hunting, illegal shooting and overfishing. However, the main causes of this conflict are the lack of experience or understanding of sustainable livelihood options, as well as the lack of incentives for sustainable use of natural resource.
A major barrier to biodiversity conservation in Vietnam's BRs is the lack of community-based wildlife (wildlife) management and conservation programs, which mainstream conservation at the landscape level; This is a much-needed approach to address threats to wildlife (such as hunting pressure) in production areas, through cooperation between the NR managers and authorities outside the NR, at the same time providing potential benefits to local communities from wildlife conservation and sustainable use of wildlife products. This challenge shows that a major barrier to effective management of BRs is the lack of technical capacity and resources for local stakeholders to implement integrated resource management and conservation of biodiversity at a large landscape level. Finally, due to the low awareness and understanding of local people and other stakeholders about conservation, the economic benefits of the BR have limited efforts to integrate biodiversity conservation into sustainable land and forest management programs.
VEM: In order to solve the above issues, what will be addressed in the framework of the BR Project, ma'am?
Mrs. Hoàng Thị Thanh Nhàn: To solve the above problems, in my opinion, it is necessary to take action to strengthen capacity, coordination between national and provincial levels on natural resource management, biodiversity conservation, prevention and management of invasive alien species. The BR Project launched today will contribute to solving the barriers to improve the legal and institutional framework; mainstreaming multidisciplinary planning and management; knowledge management.
The Project will focus on solving the problem at two levels. Project activities at the national level will support policy development and completion, legal environment for integrated ecosystem management in the BR as well as integration of natural resource management and the goals of biodiversity conservation in socio-economic development planning and the management of BRs in Việt Nam; capacity building activities to implement the policies. At the BR level, the Project will implement specific activities, pilot policies which are developed at the national level, and specific activities aimed at sustainable resource use and management of the NR and biodiversity-friendly development practices.
In order to integrate the goals of natural resource management and biodiversity conservation into socio-economic development planning and the management of the biosphere reserve, the project has selected 3 biosphere reserves: Cù Lao Chàm, Hội An; Đồng Nai and Tây Nghệ An. These three areas are selected due to their high representativeness of ecosystems (Cù Lao Chàm represents marine ecosystems; Tây Nghệ An represents mountain ecosystems and Đồng Nai represents tropical forest ecosystems); connectivity (Tây Nghệ An and Đồng Nai both have great potential for improving connectivity between important ecosystems); tourism development potentials (allowing Việt Nam to experiment with a model of tourism-based financial mobilization and participation in the management of BRs); local support and implementation capacity. All three selected sites are facing a series of threats to biodiversity, ecosystem function and sustainability of natural resource management, from tourism and infrastructure development; agricultural expansion; overexploitation of natural resources; and living practices leading to ecosystem degradation such as forest fires and water quality degradation
VEM” Can you tell us, the Project's outstanding approach and its intended contributions to the achievement of the country's goals and international commitments to which Việt Nam has participated?
Mrs. Hoàng Thị Thanh Nhàn: To find harmonious solutions between conservation and development goals, overcoming obstacles towards sustainable development is a difficult problem not only for Việt Nam, but also with other countries in the world. The project has studied lessons learned from countries around the world and practical lessons in the operation of the BR to propose the application of new approaches to the management and sustainable use of resources, including: Integrating the goals of biodiversity conservation into legal documents, strategies and planning for socio-economic development; Multi-sector and multi-stakeholder approach to natural resource management; applying SLIQ approach in resource management (S: Systems thinking; L: Landscape management; I: Interdisciplinary coordination; Q: Quality economics); Conservation associated with sustainable use of natural resources, improving livelihoods, promoting cultural values. These approaches will be specifically researched by the Project to integrate and apply in the coming time.
It can be said that the Project is suitable and supportive to achieve the goals of the National Strategy on biodiversity to 2020, with a vision to 2030 such as: Identifying the main causes of biodiversity loss to reduce direct pressure. to increase biodiversity and prevent biodiversity decline in NRs; Minimize the conflicts between conservation and development; Conserve biodiversity in the NR system with typical ecosystems and mixed ecosystems; Enhance biodiversity conservation at the ecosystems, species and genetic resources levels; Benefits from biodiversity and ecosystem-related services should be shared fairly and equally with the participation of local communities. In addition, when the above new approaches are successfully implemented and widely applied, it will contribute to sustainable development of the country through completing relevant legal bases, protection and sustainable use natural resources, overcoming obstacles to achieve harmony between conservation and development goals, creating interest and mobilizing stakeholders' participation in conservation activities.
In addition, the Project will contribute to the achievement of international commitments to which Vietnam has participated, such as assisting the achievement of the Aichi goals, especially Strategic Goal B (Reducing direct pressure on biodiversity and promoting sustainable use), Strategic Goal C (Improvement of biodiversity by protecting ecosystems, species and genetic diversity) and Goal 12 (By 2020 the extinction of known threatened species has been prevented and their conservation status, particularly of those most in decline, has been improved and sustained). The project also contributes to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG 15 on preventing biodiversity loss. In particular, the project directly supports the achievement of a commitment to join the world network of biosphere reserves, which is carried out in an open, interdisciplinary and multi-sector direction to ensure the three functions of each BR.
Nguyễn Hằng
