Project News

JICA has been supporting participatory forest management in Luang Prabang Province for many years and decided to extend its support to Oudomxay Province, starting in April 2019. As a result of discussions with provincial officers, five villages were selected as project sites. All of them sit in the basin of Beng River — the major river in the province — and are upstream from the project sites of the Asian Development Bank's Rural Infrastructure Development Project. The Beng River not only serves the basic needs of the local population, such as by providing drinking water, but it is also used for agriculture and hydroelectric power generation. In this upstream area, deforestation and degradation are spreading due to slash-and-burn agriculture and the expansion of farmland. There is an urgent need to strengthen forest management in the catchment area.

F-REDD conducted a socio-economic survey in each village to understand the profiles of the villages and the forests within them, and then proceeded with activities such as the establishment of village forest management committees, reviews of village land use plans, and cardamom planting. The agricultural and forestry extension officers of Luang Prabang Province, whose capacity has been strengthened with support from JICA, provided technical training to their counterparts in Oudomxay Province before the start of these activities.

Socio-economic survey

The officer of Luang Prabang Province provided technical training