The history of providing incentivesto rural households for forest protection and plantation in Viet Nam traces backto the early 1990s with Program 327 (1992–1998) and its successor Program 661(1998–2010), commonly known as the 5-million-hectare reforestation program. Theseprograms issued nearly two million forestland contracts to households in theuplands for forest protection and tree planting on designated protection andproduction forests. Just before the end of Program 661, in 2008, the Governmentof Viet Nam issued Decision No. 380 (2008–2010) that established a nationalprogram for Payments for Forest Environmental Services (PFES). The aims of the PFESprogram are to establish a market-based forest protection mechanism through valuationof ecosystem services, alleviate poverty, and secure ecosystem services fromforests. These ambitious goals drew hundreds of million dollars from the marketto pay forest dwellers for their conservation efforts. By the end of the pilot implementationof the PFES program in 2010, the Government issued Decree No. 99/ND/CP/2010 (herein after referred to as Decree 99), which outlined a nation-wide implementation.Currently, PFES is being implemented across Viet Nam through contracts based onexisting forestland titles with millions of dollars in committed funding fromboth public and private sources. |
