Norway to Fund $100M to Deforestation Emission Reduction in Vietnam

The government of Norway will fund $100 million to continue the project on protecting forests from emission reduction in Vietnam, state media reported. The fund is in line with the United Nations Collaborative initiative on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) in 12 developing countries including Vietnam. Norway is the UN-REDD Program’s first and largest donor. Vietnam is the first pilot country to fully start the program which will help combat climate change, conserve its rich biodiversity, and reverse land degradation and desertification.  It will provide the country with institutional and technical capacity to pilot REDD initiatives, and will focus on building capacity to implement REDD, both at the national and sub-national level, through activities in the central highlands province of Lam Dong. (Phap luat Tp.HCM Dec 15, www.un-redd.org)