The potential for REDD+ to reduce forest degradation in Vietnam

Abstract

Natural forests in Vietnam have experienced rapid declines in the last 70 years, as a result of degradation from logging and conversion of natural forests to timber and rubber plantations. Degradation of natural forests leads to loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, impacting the livelihoods of surrounding communities. Efforts to address ongoing loss of natural forests, through mechanisms such as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+), require an understanding of the links between forest degradation and the livelihoods of local communities, which have rarely been studied in Vietnam. We combined information from livelihood surveys, remote sensing and forest inventories around a protected natural forest area in North Central Vietnam. For forest-adjacent communities, we found natural forests contributed an average of 28% of total household income with plantation forests contributing an additional 15%. Although officially prohibited, logging contributed more than half of the total income derived from natural forests. Analysis of Landsat images over the period 1990 to 2014 combined with forest inventory data, demonstrates selective logging was leading to ongoing degradation of natural forests resulting in loss of 3.3 ± 0.8 Mg biomass ha−1 yr−1 across the protected area. This is equivalent to 1.5% yr−1 of total forest biomass, with rates as high as 3% yr−1 in degraded and easily accessible parts of the protected area. We estimate that preventing illegal logging would incur local opportunity costs of USD $4.10 ± 0.90 per Mg CO2, similar to previous estimates for tropical forest protected areas and substantially less than the opportunity costs in timber or agricultural concessions. Our analysis suggests activities to reduce forest degradation in protected areas are likely to be financially viable through Vietnam’s REDD+ program.

Implications of tropical cyclones on damage and potential recovery and restoration of logged forests in Vietnam

“…We found no significant differences in AGC fluxes with historical logging intensity (table 1). Ongoing (illegal) logging occurs across our study area [6], but our forest plots experienced little logging during the census interval (only 2% of mortality in forest plots was due to logging). For all plots combined, diameter growth rates averaged 0.3 cm yr −1 , recruitment rates averaged 1.5% yr −1 and mortality rates averaged 2.3% yr −1 , and all rates did not differ with historical logging intensity.…”

“…Selective logging as part of government-licensed operations has occured across much of the natural forests in the study area [6,56]. Since 2014, most commercial logging in Vietnam is prohibited [63] although informal and unplanned logging without government permission that is therefore considered to be illegal, still persists [6,64]. Plantations have been developed on non-forest land or through replacing natural forests [64] and largely consist of rubber and acacia, which is operated on 3–7 year rotations [61].…”

Synergistic Use of Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 to Map Natural Forest and Acacia Plantation and Stand Ages in North-Central Vietnam

“…The Vietnamese government is encouraging plantation managers to increase the rotation length of plantations to increase the supply of higher quality timber for construction and furniture industries [69]. An improved supply of large diameter timber from forest plantations may also reduce illegal logging and degradation of natural forests [8,70]. Perceived risk from diseases, pests and storm damage are a barrier preventing land managers increasing rotation length and previous attempts to increase rotation length have had limited success [71].…”

“…Assessments [3] of forest cover often make no distinction between natural forest and planted forest, so that countries can report increased forest area despite the ongoing loss of natural forest and conversion of natural forest to plantation. Natural forests and plantation forests differ in their ability to store and sequester carbon [4], and to support biodiversity [5][6][7], and local livelihoods [8]. An ability to distinguish plantation and natural forests using remote sensing would be of great value by allowing the accurate monitoring of natural forest loss and plantation expansion.…”

Enhancing the legal framework towards holistic and sustainable wildlife conservation in Vietnam

“…Vietnam is a biodiversity-rich nation situated in the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot of Southeast Asia (Dinerstein et al 2017;Myers et al 2000). Unfortunately, many of Vietnam's most precious species are directly threatened by unsustainable wildlife farm management, illegal harvesting and international trade (Brooks-Moizer et al 2009;Janssen and Indenbaum 2019;Challender et al 2020), deforestation and forest degradation due to agriculture expansion, urbanisation, infrastructure development, population growth and weak forest governance (Tuyet 2001;Nguyen 2017;Van Khuc et al 2018;Ngo et al 2020). The country is also a global hub for wildlife trafficking (Nguyen 2003;Grieser-Johns and Thomson 2005;Zhang et al 2008;Li et al 2010;Nguyen et al 2019;De Sadeleer and Godfroid 2020).…”