| Abstract: |
| Over the last two years, Payment for Environmental Services (PES) has received significant attention and support from the government of Vietnam. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development have puts great efforts to develop decrees and guidelines for PES development. Different international organisation including ICRAF, IUCN, WWF, SNV, Winrock International and CIFOR have been also active in facilitating the process and tested several case studies on the ground. Initial findings and assessment of these studies, notwithstanding, show that (i) there is no common platform for understanding PES within the Ministry, across the ministries and sector, amongst stakeholders; (ii) lack of scientific research on PES and poverty reduction dimension is often overlooked; (iii) there is a lack of legal status of communities entering into agreements; (iv) taxes, fee, payment is always done between government (GOV) and organisations (O) , individuals (I) => lack of policies supporting PES between O – I, I - I, O – O; (v) the lack of a clear policy and investment model that can be tested and scaled up; (vi) lack of cases on clear conditionality, realistic and voluntary can be made and ensured; and (vii) how the collected money can be spent and monitored within the communities. A practical model and research, therefore, is needed.
To meet the demand of current research as well as provide additional information for policy development, a case study related to PES will be carried out by World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) – Center of International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and Charles Darwin University (CDU) in Ha Tinh province in central part of Vietnam. The outcomes of this 3-year project will be lessons learnt for (i) institutionalization of mass organization in Vietnam in order to reduce transaction cost for PES, (ii) on how the money can be spent, monitored amongst the community and (iii) propose an improved model for policy. |
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