Story | 06 Jul, 2018
The first Bonn Challenge Regional Ministerial Roundtable for the Caucasus and Central Asia was a massive success with several countries in the region pledging to bring 2.5 million hectares into restoration.
Story | 05 Jul, 2018
How to increase the value of Vietnam’s forestry sector?
On a visit to Quang Tri in 2016 we asked a forest ranger where the best forest was. He said it was in remote areas too inaccessible for illegal logging or land conversion. If an area has fertile soil and is easy to access, people will turn it into farmland. When we asked a young farmer in Yen…
Story | 29 Mar, 2018
Cookstoves for forest conservation in Teknaf, Bangladesh
Teknaf Wildlife Sanctuary is crucial habitat for many species, but until recently, the forests of the peninsula and the mangroves along the bank of Naf River were the only sources of fuel wood for the nearby villages. The increased prevalence of wood cutting resulted…
Story | 02 Nov, 2017
Cooperative governance of the Ganges Brahmaputra Meghna Basins (GBM) region was strengthened through the recent launch of a Civil Society Organisation (CSO) vision for improved transboundary water management. The vision, which was developed by a network of over 25 CSOs from Bangladesh, Bhutan,…
Story | 13 Oct, 2017
After three years in Vietnam, the Forest and Farm Facility (FFF), a partnership between FAO, IIED and IUCN and implemented by the Vietnam Farmer Union (VNFU), has supported the establishment of 14 smallholder collectives in Yen Bai, Bac Kan, Phu Tho, and Thai Nguyen Provinces. These collectives…
Story | 05 Sep, 2017
On August 29-30, 2017, 85 delegates from India, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh gathered in Delhi, India for a South Asia regional consultation on forest landscape restoration (FLR). The consultation was hosted by IUCN in partnership with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate…
Story | 06 Jun, 2017
Saving the world’s rarest primates by involving indigenous communities
A community-based conservation programme in northeastern Viet Nam is actively involving indigenous communities in Ha Giang and Cao Bang Province to protect the habitats of two Critically Endangered primates, the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus avunculus) and…
Story | 21 May, 2017
Banning vs. legalise and regulate in forest management
Two years ago, on a field survey in Bac Kan Province in Viet Nam, we heard about a farmer who needed 30 stamps to get a permit to harvest a single Styrax tonkinensis tree that was growing on his land. Even though the tree was on land that was designated as plantation forest and the farmer had a…
Blog | 21 Mar, 2017
Blog: Bangladesh has 268 wild elephants. What does it mean to us?
On this year’s International Day of Forests (21 March), the Government of Bangladesh has unveiled two new publications on Asian Elephants in the country. These books reveal the latest estimates of Bangladesh’s elephants along with their distribution, routes, and corridors. Haseeb Md. Irfanullah…
Story | 27 Feb, 2017
Local communities empowered to protect nature in Viet Nam
Da Nang City, the third largest city in Viet Nam, is taking important initiatives to protect nature. Known as the most livable city in Viet Nam, Da Nang is remarkable not only for its policy to become an environmental city by 2020 but also for the fact that its local communities also take a …