Forests play a major role in both climate change mitigation and adaptation, but few policies, if any, integrate these two aspects. Using Indonesia and Vietnam as case studies, we identify challenges at the national level but opportunities at the local level. Although both countries demonstrate political commitment to integrating adaptation and mitigation in their development plans, guidelines for policy and planning treat the two approaches separately. The main challenges identified are lack of knowledge, lack of political will, lack of financial incentives, and fragmentation of mandates and tasks of different government agencies. In contrast, at the local level, integration of mitigation and adaptation is facilitated by subnational autonomy, where mitigation projects might have adaptation co-benefits, and vice versa. Our results also show that many actors have a dual mandate that could bridge adaptation and mitigation if appropriate political and financial incentives are put in place. Successful integration of mitigation and adaptation policies would not only remove contradictions between policies, but also encourage governments that are designing domestic policies to exploit the potential for positive spillovers and realize the benefits of both approaches.

Pham, T. T., M. Di Gregorio, R. Carmenta, M. Brockhaus, and D. N. Le. 2014. The REDD+ policy arena in Vietnam: participation of policy actors. Ecology and Society 19(2): 22.http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-06389-190222

A growing literature on collective action focuses on exploring the conditions that might help or hinder groups to work collectively. In this paper, we focus on community-based forest management in the inner Terai region of Nepal and explore the role of community and user attributes such as group size, social heterogeneities, forest user’ perception on forests, and affiliation to the user group, in the collective action of managing community forests. Household surveys were carried out with 180 households across twelve community forest users’ groups. We first measured ethnic diversity, income inequality, landholding inequality, and user perception towards the use and management of community forests to understand their effect on the participation of forest users in the management of community forests. Our results show that among the studied variables, group size (number of forest users affiliated to the community forests) and perception of the management of their community forests are strong predictors of forest user participation in community forest management. Income inequality and ethnic diversity were found to have no significant association. Land inequality, however, was found to decrease participation in the management and use of community forests. These community and user attributes play a crucial role in the success of collective action and may vary from community to community. Hence they need to be duly considered by the practitioners prior to any community-based project interventions for stimulating successful collective action.

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of existing financial incentives for mangrove conservation in Vietnam. Current conservation programs and projects have created financial incentives for mangrove protection, but the effectiveness of these incentives in addressing mangrove loss in northern Vietnam has been mixed. While financial incentives have contributed to a larger area of planted mangroves, their effectiveness is hampered by contradictory national policies, which encourage mangrove conservation on the one hand, and aquaculture expansion in mangrove areas on the other, thus making it difficult to address mangrove deforestation and degradation effectively. Mangrove conservation in Vietnam is challenged further by inequitable distribution of power and benefits, difficulties accessing information, weak law enforcement, lack of compliance, low payments for protecting mangroves, lack of full recognition of local rights, discontinued funding after policies and projects end, and lack of participation by local people in policy and project design and implementation. Conservation policies and projects should aim to protect existing mangrove forests, restore degraded mangroves and plant new ones to enhance mangrove area, quality and biodiversity. Sustainable mangrove conservation not only requires effective and sustainable financial incentives, but other enabling conditions such as addressing the conflict between mangrove conservation and aquaculture expansion, and grounding mangrove conservation projects by building on local knowledge and leadership. As these drivers are often motivated by national development goals and other sectoral development needs with ministries competing for budgets and influence, holistic land-use planning needs to be coupled with effective coordination and clarification of responsibilities between government agencies, and coordinated and consistent policies concerning these natural resources. Addressing these underlying governance issues is far more important for mangrove conservation and restoration than merely offering financial incentives as various national and international projects have attempted.

Free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) is a means of ensuring that people’s rights are respected when reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and enhancing forest carbon stocks (REDD+) projects are established in developing countries. This paper examines how FPIC has been applied in three projects in Vietnam and highlights two key lessons learnt. First, as human rights and democracy are seen as politically sensitive issues in Vietnam, FPIC is likely to be more accepted by the government if it is built upon the national legal framework on citizen rights. Applying FPIC in this context can ensure that both government and citizen’s interests are achieved within the permitted political space. Second, FPIC activities should be seen as a learning process and designed based on local needs and preferences, with accountability of facilitators, two-way and multiple communication strategies, flexibility, and collective action in mind.