Project Detail

Contributing to biodiversity conservation of Cat Ba National Park through community activity

The project will be carried out in Gia Luan and Viet Hai communes, located in the core and buffer zone of Cat Ba National Park, in Cat Hai District, Hai Phong Province. Cat Ba National Park was established in 1992 and is listed as the highest national conservation priority in the National Biodiversity Action Plan. It is located in the Cat Ba archipelago, which is part of Ha Long Bay, declared World Heritage Site in 1994, and includes Cat Ba Island, several small islands nearby, and the surrounding surface waters. The Park contains highly valuable biological resources of the limestone ecosystems. A World Bank Workshop on limestone conservation in South East Asia, organised in Vietnam in 1999, has stressed the global importance of protecting limestone ecosystems and its associated endemic plant and animal species in Vietnam. The Cat Ba archipelago together with Ha Long Bay features Vietnam's most magnificent limestone landscape of fencong and fenglin karst that has been invaded by the

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sea. It is considered as one of the world's most important sites for science regarding limestone karst geomorphology. The Cat Ba archipelago consists of some 300 islands of mainly rugged, karst limestone, the preferred habitat of the Golden-headed langur (Semnopithecus franoisi poliocephalus), which is a global conservation priority and listed on Conservation International's recent 'The world's top 25 most endangered primates'. This primate is the highest priority of Vietnam's National Primate Action Plan. The only primate population of this species in the world is found in Cat Ba National Park. The Park is also one of the only two protected areas in Vietnam that includes a marine environment. It is considered as the most important among the proposed marine protected areas of northern Vietnam. Fringing reefs and associated sea grass and mangroves dominate the marine part of the Park.
However, the Park is facing the ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss due to the overexploitation of the Park resources of the community, especially the animals, including the Golden-headed langur. Only 20 individuals are known to exist in the Cat Ba National Park. Population growth and low living standard of the community living in the core and buffer zone of the Park put considerable pressure on the Park management and protection. The current threats to the biodiversity of the Cat Ba National Park are hunting, firewood collection, illegal timber cutting, grazing, fire, agricultural encroachment and uncontrolled tourism. Dynamite fishing and tourism demand for coral reefs have severely degraded the coral reefs. The exploitation of marine resources using destructive methods is very common.
Protection of the terrestrial and marine biodiversity within the Park is ineffective due to inadequate human resources of the Park and overlapping responsibilities with the relevant government organisations, and more importantly, limited participation and support of the local authorities and community due to their low understanding and awareness on biodiversity conservation and community strong dependence on the Park resources for their daily livelihoods.
Raising environmental awareness of local stakeholders and community, generating their support for the conservation of Cat Ba National Park, and developing models which suit local conditions to diversify community income sources, is the main purpose of the project to contribute to achieving the overall goal of maintaining the biodiversity of terrestrial and marine ecosystems in the Cat Ba National Park. This will be achieved through conservation awareness activities, participatory development and application of local regulations for biodiversity conservation, and the development of agricultural production models aiming to increase community income, reducing their strong dependence on the Park resources for their daily subsistence and livelihoods. The project will also contribute to conserving the variety of local mandarin of high economic value, which is facing the deterioration and under the threat of genetic loss.
The project expects to contribute to the implementation of the potential macro GEF project on biodiversity conservation of Cat Ba National Park, which has been initiated and developed by UNDP-GEF Vietnam, through creating favourable conditions for the macro GEF implementation by raising awareness and appreciation on the Park of the local authorities and community, and enhancing the co-operation in the Park management and protection between the Park management board and the local authorities, army forces and the community. In addition, it will provide the lessons learned on the ways to diversify income sources for the community living in the core and buffer zone, reducing their overexploitation of the Park natural resources. The project will also join the effort of the international communities, including UNDP Vietnam as well as the Government in contributing to alleviating poverty of the island community in the project area while conserving the biodiversity.

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Project Snapshot

Grantee:

Women Union of Cat Hai District, Hai Phong City

Country:

Viet nam

Area Of Work:

Biodiversity

Operational Phase:

Phase 2

Grant Amount:

US$ 24,782.00

Co-Financing Cash:

US$ 35.60

Co-Financing in-Kind:

US$ 11,212.00

Project Number:

SGP/VN/99/021

Start Date:

9/2000

End Date:

9/2003

Status:

Satisfactorily Completed

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Project Characteristics and Results

Capacity - Building Component

Awareness training for key staffs of the district and the armed forces (50 people) - To exchange dialogue on policy issues, promoting the role of the community in the management of national parks (40 people) - Organize exchanges for students of Forest University in Gia Luan and Viet Hai communes (300 participants) - Propaganda on ecological environmental protection for women clubs in 6 communes and one town - Organized contest on protecting biodiversity in Cat Ba National Park from the local level to the district level (300 participants) - Organization of a study tour to learn experience in garden hill model in Cai Bau in Quang Ninh province (60 peoples) - 15 technical trainings on model of planting vegetable, orange, bee (1100 times of participation)

Emphasis on Sustainable Livelihoods

Cat Ba National Park covers an area of 15,200 ha. This is a scenic, an island ecosystem with many species of rare plants. Results of the initial investigation of the terrestrial species discovered 745 species of vascular plants, 39 species of mammals, 149 birds, 38 reptiles, 19 species of amphibians, in which there were19 rare animal species listed in the Vietnam Red Book Project implement model household economic development to reduce the pressure on national resources

Gender Focus

Gend

Notable Community Participation

Investigation activities, research and development applied community-based approach

Promoting Public Awareness of Global Environment

Project sustainability

Project models were integrated into the socio-economic development strategies of Viet Hai and Gia Luan Communes . This was stated in the resolutions issued by the district and communal People?s Council. - Key participants and beneficiaries of the project were aware of the importance of environmental protection and conservation of the national park in the local sustainable socio-economic development. - the Women Union of Cat Hai District gained a lot of experiences in project design and management. Working partnerships between the local authorities and relevant agencies of Cat Hai District and Gia Luan and Viet Hai Communes, Women Union of Cat Hai District, the Cat Ba National Park, and technical experts, and GEF/SGP were built and strengthened through the project implementation. - The Women Union of Cat Hai District was reinforced with more diverse activities. This helped enhance the credibility of the Women Union of Cat Hai District among its members and the community. This helped promote the role of the Women Union of Cat Hai District in encouraging the community to be involved in environmental protection in general and the nature reserve in particular.

Replication of project activities

The project models for income-generating was very potential for replication thanks to its suitability to the local context. The DARD of Ha Phong and the local governments confirmed that Viet Hai Commune is a highly potential place for vegetable production. It was likely that the DARD would continue to carry out further research to develop vegetable and fruit-bearing trees production in the following years. - The project will use the revolving loan programme to assist the community to replicate these models after the project ends.

Linkages gef projects

There is no linkage with other GEF initiatives. There is no clear policy link.

Planning gef grant

There is no plan for scaling up by GEF funding. The grantee will continue to use the project revolving loan to assist the community to replicate the project models.

Planning non gef grant

There is potential that the local department of agriculture and rural development and the national park will replicate the project models in their agro-extension programmes in the buffer zone of the national park.

Project Results

Project results
1. Project awareness- raising activities were successfully organized. These activities included the followings.
- a policy dialogue on policies to promote community participation in managing the National Park with 40 attendees.
- An exchange between students of the University of Forestry and the community of Gia Luan and Viet Hai communes.
- Advocacy activities for environmental protection were integrated in the operations pf Women?s Club at 6 communes and 1 town. These advocacy activities were carried out in collaboration with FFI and DED (the German Natural Conservation and Development Support organization).
2. The project successfully developed the income-generating models aiming to increase community income and relived the pressure on exploiting the natural resources of the national park.
- 15 training courses on the techniques for growing vegetables, orange trees and bee keeping were conducted.
- Three (3) models for conservation of the indigenous orange variety of Gia Luan Commune:
o A model that applied technical advances in conserving the Gia Luan?s indigenous orange variety was built in 27 households? gardens that had 7-year-old or more orange plantations.
o A model that applied highly intensive techniques for the less than 7-year-old orange trees was built in 27 other home gardens.
o A model that conserved F1 crossbreed of Orange trees was built in another 27 home gardens with the crossbreed seedlings were produced from carefully selective parent trees.
- Vegetable growing
o Four (4) models of vegetable plantation were constructed in Viet Hai Commune with total land area of 42.5 acre (equivalent to 360m2/acre). The results were very encouraging and it was the first time that the people of Viet Hai Commune have grown vegetables that did not only serve their own daily need but also that could be sold to the market, especially for the tourist market.
o 70% of vegetable-growing households reportedly had higher incomes, the remaining 30% households all had some incomes, none of them had no incomes or lower incomes compared to previously.
- A model of bee-keeping was built with participation of 10 households with 39 behives. Altogether, the model yielded 102 kg of honey, 89 kg of wax, the net profit was VND 19 million.
- The project budget for the revolving loan programme was $11,030. The repayment was 40%.

3. The understanding and knowledge on environmental issues in general and on biodiversity conservation in particular, and capacity in project implementation and management and M&E of the project grantee organization staff were considerably enhanced thanks to the project implementation and management, and training activities, such as training workshops, study tour, exchange on project management, provided by GEF/SGP office.

Sustainability:
- Project models were integrated into the socio-economic development strategies of Viet Hai and Gia Luan Communes . This was stated in the resolutions issued by the district and communal People?s Council.
- Key participants and beneficiaries of the project were aware of the importance of environmental protection and conservation of the national park in the local sustainable socio-economic development.
- the Women Union of Cat Hai District gained a lot of experiences in project design and management. Working partnerships between the local authorities and relevant agencies of Cat Hai District and Gia Luan and Viet Hai Communes, Women Union of Cat Hai District, the Cat Ba National Park, and technical experts, and GEF/SGP were built and strengthened through the project implementation.
- The Women Union of Cat Hai District was reinforced with more diverse activities. This helped enhance the credibility of the Women Union of Cat Hai District among its members and the community. This helped promote the role of the Women Union of Cat Hai District in encouraging the community to be involved in environmental protection in general and the nature reserve in particular.

Project replication
- The project models for income-generating was very potential for replication thanks to its suitability to the local context. The DARD of Ha Phong and the local governments confirmed that Viet Hai Commune is a highly potential place for vegetable production. It was likely that the DARD would continue to carry out further research to develop vegetable and fruit-bearing trees production in the following years.
- The project will use the revolving loan programme to assist the community to replicate these models after the project ends.

There is no plan for scaling up by GEF funding. The grantee will continue to use the project revolving loan to assist the community to replicate the project models.

There is potential that the local department of agriculture and rural development and the national park will replicate the project models in their agro-extension programmes in the buffer zone of the national park.

There is no linkage with other GEF initiatives.

There is no clear policy link.

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