Japan funds forestry projects
The Japanese Fund for Poverty Reduction, through the Asian Development Bank (ADB), has promised to sponsor Vietnam US$1.5 million for forestry environmental services during the 2014-16 period.
The Vietnamese Government also contributed US$150,000 to the technical assistance project which will help work out the criteria for economic evaluation of environment services at provincial level as well as the procedures for pilot programmes and the payments for forestry environmental services.
At the signing ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding on July 29, Deputy General Director of Vietnam’s Forestry Administration Vo Dai Hai said Vietnam introduced a policy on payments for forestry services in 2008 and had collected VND1 trillion (US$47.6 million) annually from these services.
However, it still faced problems in carrying out the policies because of poor communications, inadequate staff and not enough individuals being allocated to forestry protection.
ADB Country Director Tomoyuki Kimura said that the bank will continue to promote green growth in Vietnam including improving payments for forestry services. In 2010, Vietnam introduced new regulations on payments for forestry environmental services, which took effect in 2011.