Producing High-Tech Acacia Seedlings, Large Timber Plantations and FSC^® Certified Wood Processing

• Location:Communes of Hiep Duc, Tien Phuoc, Bac Tra My, Duy Xuyen, and Que Son districts of Quang Nam province.

• Time: January 01, 2023 to March 31, 2023

• Main sponsor: WWF Netherlands

• Outcomes:

New member admission and technical training courses on FSC certification

From January to March 2023 QNAFOR organized 100 training courses on 5 different topics:

(1) Introduction of FSC and benefits from FSC certified forests;

(2) FSC's standard requirements and what criteria for forest owners participate in sustainable forest management programme with FSC certification;

(3) Group administration, planning, implementation, and monitoring of FSC certified forest;

(4) Technical training on techniques of planting, caring, and harvesting FSC certified forest sustainably;

(5) Labor safety and first aid kitfor 3,300 smallholders (male: 2657, female: 643) in 20 communes in Tien Phuoc, Hiep Duc, and Bac Tra My districts.

FSC audit

On March 26-28, 2023, GFA audited for forest certification at QNAFOR with a total audit area of 4,118.96 ha/775 households/20 groups/18 communes/3 districts (Tien Phuoc, Hiep Duc, and Bac Tra My).

FPIC community training and consultationFrom March to May 2023, QNAFOR collaborated with the Consultant to organize working sessions with local authorities on the plan and contents of FPIC consultation and training in the community, held group consultation meetings (first round) with 1445 smallholders (male: 1052, female: 393), and consensus decision-making meetings (second round) with 1,535 households (male: 1100, female: 435).

Development of an application to manage and monitor the FSC certification operation system

Assessment reports on gender, environment, and society... at the project area

• Assessment report on opportunities for positive impact of FSC certified large timber plantations on climate change resilience

• Carbon life cycle assessment report

• Biodiversity baseline report for the area where QNAFOR’s project is implemented

• Community consultation:

• Design of an operational grievance mechanism
• Gender opportunity assessment
• Community natural resources exploitation safeguard

• Finalization of QNAFOR's gender policy and due diligence process

• Report on income of forest growers from different sources including from acacia plantation in the first 4 years

• Assessment on the needs of forest growers regarding the cost of extending the plantation period from 4 years to 8 years or even longer

• Acacia plantation carbon credit report, which identifies direct benefits to farmers from carbon credits

• Assessment report on market of tissue-cultured hybrid acacia seedlings