The project
Huong Son Nature takes place in an area of 20,000 ha of forest owned by the Vietnamese state and manged by Huong Son State Forest Company, in the province of Ha Thin.

It is the first Vietnamese forest regeneration project that fight climate change, loss of biodiversity and poverty through activities of forest protection, trees planting and development of market for wild forest products. Huong Son Nature generates positive impacts like the capture of CO2, the improvement of water and biodiversity and the creation of jobs.

Huong Son Nature originated from the results of the UN GEF (Global Environmental Facility) funded project ForCES (Forest Certification for Ecosystem Services). ForCES looks at what changes to the FSC® system are needed over a six years’ period, 2011-2017, for FSC to become a global leader in the certification of ecosystem services.

The problem
In the last 15 years Vietnam lost a forest area of more than 1,5 million hectares. The causes are the expansion of agriculture lands, unsustainable logging and settlements and infrastructures development.
The negative consequences are:

• the release of CO2 emissions;
• the depletion of water resources and with it the decrease of freshwater availability, the increase of floods and landslides, the reduction of hydroelectric production due to sedimentation and the reduction of reservoir capacity and the prevention of river navigation
• the loss of biodiversity including the last intact forest landscape in the world;
• the loss of sites for the development of responsible tourist activities.

The solution
To reverse this trend the Huong Son Nature project aims to pilot and change in the way in which we look at forests by capturing the value of CO2, water and biodiversity and to link this value with companies that want to make sustainability a grow factor for the country.
For this purpose, the Huong Son Nature project aims to deliver FSC® verified long term positive impacts including but not limited to:

• Securing CO2 fixation to fight climate change;
• Improing water quality and quality;
• Conserving and increasing biodiversity;
• Creating new job opportunities for local communities;
• Producing and transforming wild forest products (rattan, bamboo and medicinal plants)

Our contribution
Etifor’s team will focus on:

• forestry & ecosystem services analysis;
• investment scouting services;
• improving project visibility (promotion activities will be realized in collaboration with Storyteller-labs).