The best options for land management at the landscape level take an integrated natural resource management approach. The outcomes from land allocation will partly depend on the policy settings at all levels of governance and the ways these policies are pursued at the operational level.
The diverse forest types and plant species of Viet Nam provide much needed resources for over 25 million people. Unfortunately, this need has led to unsustainable forestry practices including a long history of deforestation. Economic development, climate change, and other external factors have already impacted diversity of Viet Nam’s forests, and the problem has great potential to increase over time.
This project is part of an overall agreement with the Forest Science Institute of Viet Nam (FSIV) to support FSIV through PhD and post-doc research projects.
Forest fragmentation is a process that divides once-continuous forests into smaller forest plots, known as patches, creating areas with non-natural land cover. It is mainly caused by human activities, such as forest conversion for agriculture and pasture, road construction, and logging.
Consumer demand for forest resources has led to extensive logging in Viet Nam’s production and natural forests. These practices have historically been exploitative, prompting a need for restrictive policies on logging allowances. While production forests are almost entirely composed of fast growing species, this timber is not of the quality needed for building or manufacturing furniture, leaving a great demand for illegal logging of natural forests. On an international scale, it is recognized that unsustainable logging practices in tropical forests has the potential to greatly contribute to carbon dioxide emissions. Such harvesting is discouraged by the United Nations Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) program.