Cam Thanh Commune is at the south-east of Hoi An City ? Quang Nam Province, Vietnam. Total natural land area is 895 ha with a population of 6,700. Cam Thanh has a complex topography, which is fragmented by multiple rivers and channels, which account for up to nearly 40% of the total land acreage. The most well grown and common plants seen are nypa-palms, which creates a diverse and scenic mangrove ecosystem.
Majority of the nypa palms were planted by the local people. The golden age of the nypa palms vegetation occurred during 1980s with coverage of hundreds of hectares. Since 1991, the nypa palms areas have been greatly reduced due to land being reclaimed for aquaculture and salt-making purposes. Current nypa palms area is only less than 65 hectares. However, during recent years, the nypa palms area have tended to be increasing as a result of higher demand for the stems and leaves for house-building to serve tourists? demand.
Nevertheless, there have been many financial (lack of funding for restoration and for providing an interim income for those who would have to change their occupation) and social (people?s poor awareness) difficulties in conservation and restoration of nypa palms. People who are dependent on nypa palms include those making a living by building houses made of nypa palms leaves and those who have converted the land use to aquaculture.
Quang Nam is a poor province of Vietnam and many people live in poverty. As a result, there is limited government?s funding available for environmental protection activities and wetland conservation in particular. There are many problems in the government administration regarding environmental and ecosystem protection, which has been the main cause of pollution and degraded landscape and watershed for Hoi An City. As a consequence, GEF SGP funding, which is expected to be used to execute activities to gradually improve the environment and protect wetland biodiversity and tourist landscape is a critical need.
Project approach
Raising people?s awareness of the significance of nypa palms through training activities.
- Supporting the local nypa palms ?dependent people to shift to other suitable occupations
- Restoring mangroves through protection to ensure natural growth and development of nypa palms, or providing seedlings bought from other places, which might be costly but effective to quickly restore the vegetation.
- Supporting research on nypa palms ecology to be able to find suitable seedlings sources. Sources of seedlings should be combination of buying and seeding, the latter will be cheaper and more sustainable.
- Proper zoning of the associated coastal wetland
- Supporting development of legal regulations on conservation of nypa palms
Long-term objective:
To conserve Cam Thanh nypa palms forest and to manage the local natural resources in a sustainable manner
Immediate objectives:
Objective 1
- To restore Cam Thanh nypa palms ecology
Output 1.1
The nypa palms area is properly zoned for different uses
Output 1.2
Compensation or benefit-sharing rights will be given to the local people who own areas that are zoned for restoration
Output 1.3
Areas that are zoned for restoration will be afforested with nypa palms or other selective mangrove species.
Objective 2
To strengthen nypa palms wetlands management capacity
Output 2.1
A community network is established to manage the nypa palms wetlands.
Output 2.2
A communication and monitoring system for the nypa palms wetlands is established and effectively functioned
Objective 3
To sustainably use the natural resources in the conservation area
Output 3.1
Job-based community groups are formed being able to implement a work plan that suits the sustainable development of nypa palms conservation.
Output 3.2
A model for ecotourism at the nypa palms area is formed (in complementarities of existing Cam Thanh ecotourism carried out by WAP)
Output 3.3
A model for sustainable management of aquaculture in the nypa palms wetlands are built
Major activities
- Field surveys and making use of available research results to draft zoning of the wetland area
- Training for and consultation with community on zoning
- Developing a 1:5,000 scale zoning map and regulations for the management of the nypa palms wetland
- Having the zoning and regulations approved by Hoi An City Government
- Persuading participation of the community in restoring nypa palms on aquaculture land areas and those lands that have been inefficiently used.
- Developing a benefit-sharing scheme with regard to the restored nypa palms area
- Community participation in restoring the nypa palms (preparing the land, selecting seeds and seedlings, nursing of seedlings, planting)
- Planting 15 hectares of nypa palms
- Developing a volunteers? safeguards network among community members to provide information to the public security in cases of violation of the regulations on protecting nypa palms
- Providing basic equipment and facilities for the volunteers group to facilitate actions against violation
- Developing a monitoring system for the nypa palms zoned area
- Testing technical approaches to sustainably harvest nypa palms leaves
- Providing technical and financial support to effect alternative livelihoods
- Training on ecotourism income-generating activities
- Providing technical and financial support to community members to carry out ecotourism income-generating activities
- Training on sustainable aquaculture in the nypa palms areas using lessons learnt from other wetlands projects