Title of Project 

Sustainable community forestry and poverty reduction in Vietnam – linking natural resource accounting of ecosystem services to carbon financial markets.

 

 

The Vietnamese Ministry of Forestry recently reported that forest cover in four provinces have increased to 60% or more, and at the end of 2005 the country as a whole had 12.6 million hectares of forest (~37 %). This projects will build on the success of the reforestation efforts in Vietnam and develop a pilot project in Bac Giang Province that demonstrates the additional, poverty-reduction opportunities gained by linking community reforestation, the ecosystem services from carbon sequestration, and global carbon financial markets.

 

 

Prior to measuring carbon uptake from the reforestation activities at the site, baseline maps will be developed from cadastral surveys, and multi-date high-resolution satellite imagery. 

A registry will be developed whereby farmers who are directly involved in reforestation activities will be registered. Lands under reforestation or agro-forestry will also be registered. The database will be linked to the digital, geographically registered datasets from task 1 using a GIS application. The registry will be available via the Internet to participants and project managers.

A suite of carbon accounting tools is required in order to accurately account for sequestered carbon from a series of small-holder parcels. The use of high-resolution, remotely sensed satellite imagery, GIS, and validated carbon models can provide such a cost-effective means. Carbon accounting tools to verify and validate sequestered carbon will be developed using remote sensing software and data (RS), GIS applications, and carbon models. Validation will include in situ forest measurements and estimations derived from RS, GIS, and carbon models. 

 

Principal Investigator, Dr. David Skole, Department of Forestry, Michigan State University, 1405 S. Harrison Road, Suite 101, East Lansing, MI 48823 USA, Tel: +1 517-355-1778, Email: skole@msu.edu;

 

Co-Investigator, Dr. Do Xuan Lan, Forest Inventory and Planning Institute, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Thanh Tri, Hanoi, Vietnam, Tel: 04 86 12858, Email: landx@tamviet.net; Project Manager, Jay H. Samek, Department of Forestry, Michigan State University, 1405 S. Harrison Road, Suite 101, East Lansing, MI 48823 USA, Tel: +1 517-432-3924, Email: samekjay@msu.edu.