New project to promote sustainable, legal and responsible timber trade in Viet Nam
Hanoi, Viet Nam, January 2017—the Viet Nam Administration of Forestry (VNFOREST), TRAFFIC, WWF-Vietnam and the Center for People and Forests (RECOFTC) have launched a joint project under the “Responsible Asia Forestry & Trade” (RAFT) Partnership to focus on sustainable forest management, supporting Viet Nam to strengthen its implementation of legal and responsible timber trade.
The project will help Viet Nam’s burgeoning timber enterprises to boost their capacity to classify and identify legal timber for export to overseas markets.
Major export markets are increasingly requiring timber-producing countries to prove the legal origin of exported timber in a move to combat the flow of illegally harvested timber.
For example, the European Union (EU) developed the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan, under which exporting nations enter into Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) with the EU. Similar legislation to prevent illegal timber entering the marketplace already exists in Australia and the US.
Mr Le Van Bach, Director of The Forest Production Management Department, Viet Nam Administration of Forestry, said: “Viet Nam is at the final stage of signing a Voluntary Partnership Agreement with the EU—building capacity on legal timber and responsible trade is essential.”
The project is divided into two main components: promoting sustainable plantation management based on international standards and strengthening the implementation of responsible and legal timber trade. It also aims to create basic awareness about timber legality processes amongst manufacturers and businesses.
Initially, this will help create a market for responsible timber products in Viet Nam and bring benefits to the environment and society. It will also help combat illegal trade of timber, improve investment into the protection of Viet Nam’s natural environment and enhance the reputation of the Vietnamese market.
The Viet Nam Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has set a target that at least 500,000 hectares of forests have been certified by 2020. Currently only 135,858 hectares are certified.
To help achieve this ambition, the project will identify forest areas that have the potential for certification, develop a forest-owner manual on plantation forest certification and sustainable forest management and support reviews of the State policy on promoting sustainable forest management.
“RECOFTC will make recommendations to help VNFOREST develop or revise at least one important policy to promote sustainable forest management,” said Mr Luong Quang Hung, a representative of RECOFTC Viet Nam.
This project joins together the Vietnamese authorities and the international NGO community in efforts towards ensuring a more sustainable trade of timber and halting the illegal timber trade—such co-operation is important to establish sustained action for controlled export of Vietnamese timber
Madelon Willemsen, Head of TRAFFIC’s Viet Nam Office
“The timber trade is a signficant part of the international economy and Viet Nam’s role is critical to ensure that resources are sourced via legal and sustainable means.”
The RAFT partnership’s work in Viet Nam is funded by the Australian Government through The Nature Conservancy organization (TNC), and will run until March 2018.
About RAFT
The Responsible Asia Forestry & Trade partnership (RAFT) brings together the skills and knowledge of seven leading organizations to provide capacity-building and knowledge-sharing services in support of the trade in responsibly harvested and processed commodities from forested landscapes across the Asia Pacific region. RAFT is supported by the Australian and US Governments, Norad and the Arcus Foundation, and is implemented by TNC, WWF, RECOFTC, TRAFFIC, the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), the Forest Trust (TFT) and the Tropical Forest Foundation (TFF). In addition to these core partners, RAFT works with governments, industry, CSOs, IGOs and educational institutions from across the globe. www.responsibleasia.org
