Funding the protection and development of mangrove forests at sub-national level: Lessons from Ben Tre, Tra Vinh and Ca Mau provinces, Vietnam

Pham T.T,Atmadja S,Hoàng T.L,Nguyen D.T,Le H.N

doi:10.17528/cifor/007234

Abstract

Key MessagesExisting financial incentive mechanisms (FIMs) to protect and develop mangrove in Ben Tre, Tra Vinh and Ca Mau come from 6 primary sources: central state budget; provincial state budgets; national scheme on Payment for Forest Environmental Services; foreign projects; public-private partnerships; and the private sector.These FIMs have provided funding to incentivise forest owners and provincial government agencies for better mangrove protection and development. Nevertheless, accessing to these funding schemes is difficult for forest owners due to complex procedures, the requirement to have high-counterpart funding, and high initial investment costs to meet access criteria.Due to challenges to access FIMs, these existing incentives are not attractive enough for forest owners to change their behaviour toward better mangrove protection and development.

Highlights

In Vietnam, many factors have contributed to the steady decline and degradation of mangrove forests
In 2017, of the funding allocated from the central state budget for provincial mangrove forest protection and development program, only less than 15% was disbursed to Ben Tre and 19% to Tra Vinh provinces
We elicited the perception of stakeholders on the extent of forest area, environmental awareness, and livelihoods (Table 3)

Summary

Introduction

Mangroves forest ecosystems are amongst the most important ecosystems in the world. They are highly productive, rich in biodiversity and adapted to the harsh and variable environment in the interface between the land and sea (Phan and Hoang, 1993; Edward and Suthawan, 2004). In 2017, of the funding allocated from the central state budget for provincial mangrove forest protection and development program, only less than 15% was disbursed to Ben Tre and 19% to Tra Vinh provinces. In Tra Vinh province, total approved budget for Sustainable protection forests investment and development program was VND 94 billion consisting of VND 79.4 billion from the central state and VND 14.6 billion from the provincial state budgets. In Tra Vinh, provincial authorities agreed to fund VND 15 billion for the sustainable forest development program. Ca Mau People’s Committee issued Decision No 111/QĐ-UBND in 2016, which regulated the pilot program on organic certification of shrimp production in Ca Mau province (Figure 2) This decision recognizes organic shrimp farmers as “sellers” of ecosystem goods and services that flow from well- managed mangroves. These payments represent a price premium of about 2.5% compared to the 10% originally negotiated (IUCN 2016)

Funding sources Ben Tre

Funding sources

Findings

Funding modes State budget