Participating in Forest Good Governance
17/01/2019 Hanoi, Vietnam
“Today is an opportunity to give transparency and fairness on the topic of forest monitoring in Vietnam.”
This was the goal of the 2nd Forest Governance Monitoring Forum, as introduced by M. Pham Van Tan representative of the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations (VUSTA).
Vietnam is currently preparing the implementation of the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) signed with the European Union (EU) last October in Belgium. This agreement ensures the legality of the timber placed on the European market and aims at reducing illegal logging to conserve the tropical forest.
The VPA is a 300-page policy text which took over eight years to write. Now that Vietnam and the EU agreed on the VPA content, Vietnam must implement its promises. This means that the VPA must be institutionalized and integrated in the Vietnamese forestry law. Vietnam is relatively free to implement the VPA as they wish. Still, the country must follow some guidelines drawn by the EU.
During her speech, Ms Nguyen Tuong Van from the Vietnam administration of forestry highlighted some important point of the VPA. She emphasized on the commitment made by Vietnam to create an independent monitoring system assessing the VPA social, economic and environmental effects. In the…
