Posted on 18 April 2013

“Increasing district staff capacity on rattan in one of main activities of sustainable rattan project aims to work on,” said Le Van Dong, WWF-Vietnam’s Sustainable Rattan Project Manager.

Natural rattan resources yet cannot supply local rattan entrepreneurs that require more and more resources every year.

Early this year, a local authority representative of District People's Committee of A Luoi District signed a memorandum for cooperation with WWF-Vietnam’s Sustainable Project and developed an integrated plan in 2013 for rattan enrichment in the forest areas.

Need to be prepared

Rattan enrichment is a necessary activity to ensure the rattan supply chain that benefits environment – forest and wildlife – communities, entrepreneurs, traders and users.

Last month, WWF-Vietnam in collaboration with local governments of A Luoi and Nam Dong Districts held a training programme on rattan and forest plantation planning including directing method and field situation handling.

Two mountainous A Luoi and Nam Dong, in Thua Thien Hue are suitable for rattan enrichment because of good condition of weather, enrich soil and natural forest ecosystem, but lack of rattan enrichment skilled commune staff who work directly with ethnic communities.

An opportunity to meet with different sectors

This training allowed unskilled staff from forest protection unit, agricultural and forestry extension unit, agricultural and rural development office of district, farmer association, forest management board, commune people committee gaining how to direct, support and monitor the rattan and forest plantation activities. These staff will later be the key persons to provide technical support to local people/communities and monitor the field activities.

Benefit of experiences and challenge shared across

Trainees also shared their field experiences and challenges – good experiences from this sector could benefit others and be applied in their daily tasks in the field, but to change indigenous farming behaviours is the same challenge of the trainees.

After the training programme, local authorities, technical staff and stakeholders highly appreciated the practical and effective impact of these courses. WWF-Vietnam’s Sustainable Rattan Project considers on replication this training in another provinces that project is active.