Germany Plans EUR1.2M for Vietnam Biodiversity Preservation Project by 2014

The Development Bank of Germany (KFW) has financed EUR1.2 million for the “Carbon reserve and preservation of biodiversity” project totaling EUR1.8 million in Vietnam’s central province of Quang Nam from now to 2014. This is part of a larger-scale program on decreasing deforestation and forest degradation in the border area of Central Vietnam and Southern Laos, aiming to protect carbon reserves and biodiversity. The four-year project will strive for sustainable management of an area of 200,000 hectares of border forest in the central Truong Son mountain range. Three natural reserves of the Sao La Nature Reserve, the extended Bach Ma National Park of Vietnam and the Xe Sap Nature Reserve of Laos absorb a large volume of carbon and are home to an important range of flora and fauna. The project will also focus on boosting capacity and management at the Sao La Nature Reserve, raising the quality of natural forest in the Tay Giang corridor in Quang Nam while enhancing the state management in Sekong and Salavan provinces of Laos as well as the illegal cross-border timber trade.  It also marks efforts of both the Vietnamese and German sides in the biodiversity conservation, Alice Salburg-Falkenstein, a KFW representative, said at the project’s launch ceremony on August 11.  Vietnam now has a high biodiversity with many UNESCO-recognized biosphere reserves like the Can Gio mangrove forest in Ho Chi Minh City, the Cat Ba archipelago, the Red River Delta and Kien Giang. (vietnamplus.vn Aug 11, baodientu.chinhphu.vn Aug 11)