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Project News

2017-10-20

Subject:Vietnamese forestry officials visit Japan for forest monitoring and forest information management training.

From October 10th to 19th, a group of Vietnamese forestry officials from both central and provincial levels visited Japan to learn its forest monitoring and forest information manage-ment. This training was able to be implemented with supports from national and prefectural authorities and private sector.

While forest area has expanded in Vietnam, forest condition has drastically changed due to the influence of rapid population growth, slash and burn agriculture exceeding forest resiliency, illegal logging of natural forest, etc. Moreover, accuracy and transparency of forest monitoring data are compulsory when Vietnamese government requests the Result Based Payment (RBP) under REDD+[1] scheme.

In these conditions, one of the challenges, which Vietnamese government needs to ad-dress, is how to accurately know forest information and its changes. The SNRM Project has cooperated with Finland-funded FORMIS II Project in improving Vietnam's Forest Re-sources Monitoring System (FRMS) in order to holistically collect and manage forest infor-mation. Specifically, it has supported field level forest monitoring by introducing tablet-PCs and mobile applications. The mobile system has been introduced to 15 provinces up to present, four of which have just started provincial-wide operation. For wider deployment of this system and more efficient application of other technology for forest monitoring in Vietnam, it is very useful reference to study Japan's structured forest management and forest information system.

This training consisted of both lectures and local/ field visits. The lectures included the management of national forest resource database by Forestry Agency. As of local visits, the trainees visited Fukui Prefecture to learn the utilization of Geographic Information Sys-tem (GIS), satellite images and forest register. Fukui is one of the leading prefectures to publish forest information on their website. In Akaya forest promotion center under Kanto Regional Forest Office, the trainees learned collaborative forest management with public-private partnerships and natural forest rehabilitation activities. As of the cutting edge tech-nology, they visited Toda-gumi Ltd. in Niigata and learned drone utilization for forest man-agement. The forest register was praised by the trainees to be a good model.

Although natural and socio-economic conditions between Japan and Vietnam are different, lessons on Japan's structural forest management to secure the strong collaboration be-tween national and local governments and its application of technology in forest monitoring would prove useful for Vietnamese trainees. It is expected that the improved FRMS for Vietnam will be successfully developed and adaptable to changes in the country's circum-stances during and after the lifecycle of SNRM Project.

PhotoLecture about the national forest resource database at Forestry Agency

PhotoLecture about forest information manage-ment at Fukui prefecture office.


PhotoField visit to Akaya forest promotion center

PhotoGroup photo in the field during visit to Toda-gumi Ltd.


PhotoField lecture on drone utilization at Toda-gumi

PhotoSharing of lessons learnt at training wrap-up session


Note

  • [1] Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stock in developing countries. Developing countries can receive economical supports such as payments based on the result of REDD+ activities from developed countries.

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