Sustainable rattan in the Greater Mekong region

Rattan canes stored in the warehouse awaiting to split

Rattan splitting process

Trainers train villagers specific weaving baskets

Female villager gathering to work on rattan basket production and earning income for their families

Bending rattan canes into the baskets structure/frames

Open air drying rattan baskets

Rattan baskets in a set of three awaiting to load into the stove

Loading rattan baskets into stove for drying

Moisture checking before taking out rattan baskets from the stove

Labeling process

Quality control check point

Ramdom QC check

QC passed products

A pile of QC passed products

QC passed products

Packaging process

Forklifting green rattan basket boxes to the container

Two days before deadline to export sustainable rattan baskets

Vietnamese delegation in a FSC certified rattan forest in Bolikhamxay province

Rattan seedling poking through the jungle floor in Sopphouan Village.

Rattan nurseries play an important role in sustainable rattan harvest.

Rattan baskets

Peer learning - trained villagers show how to weave rattan baskets in Thaveng Village, Khamkeut District. Some villagers can earn 350$ a month from weaving the baskets to sell abroad

Involvement of community in rattan supply chain helps improvement on FSC and CoC approach.

Staff is testing percentage of moisture of the rattan basket before going to another quality controlled stage

Mr. Kensy Milamith, vice village head of Thaveng Village, Bolikhamxay Province, is proudly to tell about his income earning from weaving rattan basket.

Latest News

Discussion with local villagers in Huong Phong commune

05 Jun 2013

Local contribution is a need to sustain rattan

Early May, Stefan Andreas Zeigler from WWF Deutschland and other delegation of WWF Greater Mekong Programme visited the rattan project sites in Aluoi ...

Final products of rattan are ready to export to EU market

03 Jun 2013

EU market demands more green rattan products from Laos

First green rattan products exported to EU market last year after Laos’s sustainable rattan forest management had received the world’s first ...

Unsustainable rattan harvesting leads to forest degradation, and affects tropical forest ecosystems as well as rural people’s source of income. Achieving a more sustainable rattan production will ensure future rattan supply and prevent negative impacts on nature, communities and companies.

Company Profiles

Discover the companies that are participating in this WWF project

The importance of rattan for multiple uses, such as furniture and building material is nowadays widely recognized.

However, the way rattan is harvested and processed needs to improve in order to secure the supply in the long term (find out why).

The use of toxic chemicals and petrol in the processing of rattan does not affect only soil, air and water resources negatively, but also people’s health. Other problems include:

Wastage
Pollution
Unreliable and illegal supply
Low product quality

Why WWF is involved

In the long term, the objective of the WWF Sustainable Rattan Project in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam is credible forest certification as well as establishing a more sustainable rattan production supply chain.

As part of this project, communities and companies in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam are working with WWF to implement a viable and sustainable forest management model.

This project already has several achievements to its credit.

This project - Phase III - is funded by the international retailer IKEA

Rattan Project Phase II was co-funded by the European Union