The project has achieved results as below:
1. Celebration of Spiritual Cultural Festivals
The project has organized successfully two spiritual cultural festivals ? the A Za festival and the Giang Xu thanksgiving festival.
After a long period of being consigned to oblivion (60 years for the A Za festival and 44 years for the Giang Xu Thanksgiving festival). The festivals had been restored to their former glory with the participation of the local community and the council of village elders of Huong Nguyen commune. All the people have volunteered to participate in the festivals with great spirit of pride of the traditional culture in general and their forest preservation taboos in particular as they commented on the facebook. Through their traditional cultural festivals, messages of the protection of forest resources and wildlife have been included in their prayers to Forest God as their promise to protect forests.
Previously, their offerings to the god were wild animals hunted and plants gathered from forests but now have been no longer used in their festivals. Instead, the offerings include domesticall produced products from local animal and crop husbandy. This is a big change in local people?s awareness and behaviour towards the protection of local forest resources and demonstrates their commitment to prevent any damage to local forest resources.
2.Communication Activities
The project has launched communication campaigns to raise awareness of forest protection and management and biodiversity conservation among local communities.
Specifically:
- Twelve bulletins were published focusing on twelve themes, including
(i) World Environment Day ? ?Green Living and Respect for Nature;
(ii) Network of Mountain and Forest Lovers;
(iii) Growing Thien Nien Kien (Homalomena) Plants under forest canopy;
(iv) Technical Seminar on Ra Du Rice farming;
(v) The lyrics and words of poem sound the spirit of high mountains and forests;
(vi) Loans for semi-intensive cattle raising;
(vii) A Za New Rice Festival;
(viii) The 2018 Project Performance Progress Review;
(ix) Financial contributions to raising a community based fund for livelihood development of the Huong Nguyen Communal Forest Management Network;
(x) Restoring the Giang Xu Thanksgiving Festivals;
(xi) Small loans - a new hope for poor farmers in Huong Nguyen commune;
(xii) Review and advice of the cultivation of Thien Nien Kien plants under natural forest canopy.
These themes had been broadcast on the commune?s radio network for 5-7 days and especially the bulletins on the A Za and Giang Xu festivals were disseminated by mobile communication campaigns. The bulletins have conveyed key messages to the communal people about the importance of forests to local cultural, economic, social and environmental resources.
- The project has held a folk song and poetry composing contest on the themes of forest, environment and life, in which there were 21 people including 16 women, took part. The winning songs and poems were performed at local cultural events and folk festivals, and broadcast on the communal radio network.
- The project has designed and put five posters in public places to disseminate messages saying: (i) ?Forests are not a storehouse of timber but our God who protects our lives; (ii) Conserving forests - preserving the cultural beauty of the Co Tu people; (iii) Creating livelihoods today, Greener forests tomorrow; (iv) Every creature has a right to live, Stop trading and killing wildlife?. The posters carry messages saying the people?s role and responsibility towards the forest, and these messages came up with the ideas given by local people.
- 200 leaflets were compiled and provided by the project for local associations/organizations and local people to spread relevant information about the project.
3. Establishing a Sustainable Forest Management and Biodiversity Conservation Network
In order to connect groups of forest management households for the purpose of better forest protection and management, the project has established a sustainable forest management and biodiversity conservation network (or Forest Management Network - FMN). The network was recognized by Huong Nguyen Communal People's Committee (CPC) in Decision 41 / QD-UBND dated September 10, 2018, consisting of 44 members.
Through the network, the project has provided five skills training courses for 124 turns of FMN members, including 38 female in five topics: the management and operation of forest management groups and network; forest integrity monitoring, communication campaigns for FMN members; forest management and protection planning; and Sustainable NTFP harvesting techniques.
The network has well performed a function of connecting local forest management villages/households in the patrol of forest protection, sharing of relevant information and improvement of local people?s awareness. The network has organized and maintained regular meetings (once a month) since the last year. In the meetings, besides sustainable forest management and biodiversity conservation, other issues such as livelihood development, operation of the livelihood fund, production experience and techniques were discussed. Moreover, relevant information about sustainable NTFP harvesting and Ra Du rice farming experience and techniques also was shared among approx. 300 turns of FMN members.
With the training and technical support in the building of forest planning and monitoring skills provided for FMN members, local forest management household/community groups have better developed forest protection patrol planning. They have made patrols more often than before, with 2-3 times a month. Especially, local people have proficiently used the forest management software on mobile phones to patrol forest protection. As a result, since the early 2019, there has not been an illegal exploitation of forest resources in Huong Nguyen commune where previously was one of illegal forest resource harvesting hot spots (Source: The 2019 Huong Nguyen Commune?s Socio-economic Development Report).
In addition, 30 FMN members representing local forest protection household/community groups were engaged in direct dialogue with local state management agencies including the departments of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) and Natural Resources and the Environment (DONRE). In this dialogue, there were various inadequacies in community based forest management pointed out, such as the absence of local forest management conventions/regulations; lack of legal documents to allow independent monitoring of forest resources; and lack of support resources. These comments were recognized by the agencies and both sides agreed a need to develop a community based forest management regulations that is appropriate to the local realities to bridge the gaps and enable local communities to better manage forest protection.
4. Establishing a Community Based Livelihood Development Fund
A community-based livelihood development fund (or Livelihood Fund) was established in Huong Nguyen commune and the fund operates on the basis of the autonomy of FMN and local communities. A fund management unit (FMU) consisting of representatives from several communal associations/ organizations and forest management households/ communities, was established under Decision 1246/QD-UBND dated August 15, 2018, enacted by A Luoi District People's Committee (DPC). The local communities also discussed and agreed that the forest management households/communities shall make financial contributions to the livelihood fund by deducting from the Payment for Forest Environmental Services PFES fund.
After the establishment of the fund, the project provided two training courses in fund management and operation skills for 45 turns of participants including 21 women from FMU, heads of borrower groups, and members of village level women's unions and forest management household/community groups; a study tour for FMU members and representatives of borrowing households to study a model for managing community based livelihood fund in Thuong Nhat commune, Nam Dong district; and 15 turns of consultation on the management and operation of the fund for FMU members and local communities.
With a seed capital of VND 306.2 million including 284.2 million provided by the project and 22 million conducting from the PFES fund contributed by FMN, the FMU has disbursed VND 209.9 million to 30 households for their production expansion, including 21 households implementing the semi-intensive cattle raising model and nine households implementing the Ra Du rice farming model. In particular, two households borrowed again from the revolving fund to further their cattle raising.
So far the repayment on the loans and interests made by the borrowers accounts for 64.1% (or VND 54,020 million compared to the amount of 84,262 million as planned), with the interest that is over 96.7% (VND 6,224 million / VND 6,436 million).
Through the management and operation of the Livelihood Fund, the community?s capacity has been improved, they have known how to take into considerations investment in production according to the family's potential, as well as how to save up revenues to repay loan and interest. Heads of borrower groups have developed their proficiency in book-keeping. Especially, the Huong Nguyen Communal Youth Union that only knew how to launch movements among young people previously, has now enabled to well manage and operate the livelihood fund throughout all the stages of planning, disbursement, review of applications for loans and the administration of loan documents.
5. Establishing production technical procedures and training
The project has carried out field surveys and established three technical procedures for Ra Du rice farming; semi-intensive cattle husbandry; and Thien Nien Kien (Homalomena) plant growing that are local promising means of livelihood. As a result, the district-wide application of the Ra Du rice farming procedure was approved by A Luoi DPC in Decision 12/QD-UBND in April, 2019.
These technical procedures were published and distributed to beneficiary households. The procedures, as commented by local people, were designed and compiled with locally real pictures in a simple, clear and easily understandable manner. So far, local households have followed the technical procedures to develop their livelihoods in a sustainable way leading to less reliance on forest resources and better biodiversity conservation..
6. Developing livelihoods for local people who live on forests
The project has provided local households with technical support for the development of livelihood models.
Ra Du rice farming model
Among the three livelihood development models, the Ra Du rice farming model has yielded 100 ? 200 kg/ha or an income of 30 million VND/ha/year in monetary term. Ra Du rice is grown after harvesting acacia. In addition to the main income from Acacia, local farmers have earned an additional income 10-20 million VND per ha from Ra Du rice in the first year.
Cattle raising model
So far there have been 21 cattle raising models in the commune and five cows have reproduced calves. It is estimated that the value of a calf of 15-18 months accounts for VND 12-15 million.
Thien Nien Kien (Homalomena) plant growing model
It is estimated that a pilot model for growing Thien Nien Kien plants would yield about 3-5 tons of roots per ha or an income of VND 15-20 million VND in monetary term. In addition to the economic value, the Thien Nien Kien (Homalomena) plants also bring about environmental value and enrich the biodiversity.
The livelihood development models are of great potential for replication. With the Ra Du rice farming model, the area of Ra Du rice farming was only 0.5 ha in 2018, but this figure increased to 4.5 ha in 2019. Similarly, in 2018 the semi-intensive cattle raising model involved only seven households who were brave to participate, this model now has been replicated to 14 other households. Although the model for growing Thien Nien Kien plants has not been yielded yet, it has been expanded to 0.5 ha.
In addition to financial and technical supports for the expansion of local production, the project also has helped local producers to enable the marketing of their products. As a result, the A Luoi district Women's Union has undertaken the sale of Ra Du rice products; and The Green Alliance Co. and the groups of forest management households No.1 and 3 of Mu Na Ta Rá village signed ?the Agreement on the cooperation in growing Thien Nien Kien plants and selling its products? in December 18, 2019. This result has created good markets for the models? products and serves as an important basis for the replication of the models in the future.