Project News

This project, which started in October 2020, is now reached a major milestone as it has completed its first year and now in the middle of its three-year period. To mark this turning point, the Second Joint Coordinating Committee, which serves as the project's highest decision-making body to monitor the progress of the project and determine future strategies, was held on February 7th. From the Cambodian side, the representatives of each counterpart organization of the project (Ministry of Environment, Forestry Administration, Stung Treng Provincial Department of Environment, and Forestry Administration Cantonment), and from the Japanese side, in addition to JICA Experts, representatives from the Embassy of Japan in Cambodia, JICA headquarters, JICA Cambodia Office participated in the meeting. Ms. KAMEI Haruko, JICA Chief Representative, also participated in the event as a guest. Amid the continued influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference took place virtually, but lively discussion was ensued as the main stakeholders of the project gathered together.

The meeting was held in three sessions. In the first session, the representatives of the counterpart organizations reported the progress of the first year, and based on the result, the representative of JICA Experts proposed the change of the overall project plan. A key change was to add capacity building for protected area rangers into provincial-level activities. After a discussion in the second session, it was agreed that the Committee would approve this revision of the overall plan. Based on this agreement, detailed plan of activities of the second year of the project - including the promotion of the monitoring of the Action Plan for Implementing the National Protected Area Strategic Management Plan that had been stagnant due to the pandemic, the acceleration of the finalizing the Production Forest Strategic Plan, and the enhancing the National Forest Monitoring System by using satellite monitoring data and drone images - was introduced by the counterparts in-charge of each activity and approved by the Committee. The members of the Project Management Unit who attended the event confirmed that they would actively implement the activities in 2022 based on the approved detailed plan of operation in order to achieve the expected results.

In the third session, 6 counterparts who participated in the online trainings of JICA on different themes, namely Policy Planning Skills for Implementation of REDD+, Remote Sensing of Forest Resources, and Tropical Forest Management Using the JJ-FAST, an ALOS-2 Based Forest Monitoring System, and Other Satellite Technologies, respectively made presentations to disseminate the training results.

Looking back on the first year of the project, it can be said that it was a difficult year of being at the mercy of the COVID-19 crisis. In the very beginning phase of the project, October 2020, Cambodia was successful with its border control measures, and as a result, the nation was almost completely free of the COVID-19 effects. Unfortunately, starting from February of the following year, the COVID-19 has begun to spread rapidly in Cambodia, forcing the government to impose strict regulations such as lockdown of the capital and ban of interprovincial travel, which in turn caused many of the planned activities of the project to be delayed or stagnant. However, the project has reached a level of maturity with such experience, and this time the Joint Coordinating Committee focused on changing the plan to catch up with the delay in activities and to achieve the intended goals and outcomes within the project period. With these new plans as a guideline, the project is enthusiastic about promoting each activity while encouraging more independent participation of counterparts.

The participants of the 2nd JCC Meeting held on-line.

Based on the 2nd year plan, the Project will enhance local community's capacity in the selected Community Forestry in Stung Treng Province.