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Project summary: The Forestry Strategy 2020 of Lao PDR, adopted by Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in July 2005, set the objective of increasing forest coverage from 47% to 70% by 2020. The Strategy aims to generate a sustainable supply of forest products, preserve unique and threatened habitats and promote environmental conservation and protection. The three northern Provinces of Laos (Luang Namtha, Oudomxay and Borkeo Provinces), where 11 of the 19 districts and 334 villages are identified as very poor communities, are endowed with rich forest resources which play an important role in maintaining the livelihood of local communities, promoting rural development and conservation of environment and biodiversity. However, deforestation and forest degradation in the three Provinces remains as a great challenge and has posed threats to sustainable management of forest ecosystem and sustainable development of local communities. It has become a common goal and task of the Central and Provincial governments to reverse the trend of deforestation and forest degradation by taking effective measures, including strengthening land use planning, promoting restoration and rehabilitation of degraded forests, improving livelihood, conserving biodiversity and facilitating participation of local communities in forest management. The project will mainly carry out land use planning, restoration and rehabilitation of degraded forest land, NTFP development, forest law enforcement and trans-boundary biodiversity conservation to promote and facilitate the sustainable forest management in the three targeted provinces, and mainly focus on helping local authorities and communities to sustainably manage forest resources by – Exploring and demonstrating effective approaches on forest restoration and forest management, which can help to generate sustainable flow of benefit to closely related stakeholders, – strengthening capacity on forest law enforcement, promoting trans-boundary cooperation on biodiversity conservation, – sharing the information and knowledge of best practices on forest restoration and rehabilitation. The project will last for 5 years and be implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Lao PDR with supports from line ministries, departments and the three provincial authorities. |