ENVIRONMENTAL FEES FIGHT POVERTY, SAVE FORESTS IN VIETNAM'S

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 HO CHI MINH CITY 000031 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR EAP/MLS, USAID/ANE, EEB/TPP/BTA/ANA, OES/STC, OES/ENRC (SCASWELL AND HSUMMERS) INTERIOR FOR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS (KWASHBURN AND KSENHADJI) JUSTICE FOR ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES (JWEBB) USDOC FOR 4431/MAC/AP/OPB/VLC/HPPHO TREASURY FOR CHUN E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ECON ETRD EAGR EIND SENV SOCI PGOV PREL VM SUBJECT: ENVIRONMENTAL FEES FIGHT POVERTY, SAVE FORESTS IN VIETNAM'S CENTRAL HIGHLANDS REF: 08 HCMC 1099 "WILDLIFE PROTECTION AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT" HO CHI MIN 00000031 001.2 OF 002 ¶1. (SBU) Summary. Vietnam has lost a staggering 80 percent of its old-growth forest in the last 20 years, a calamity that the GVN's underfunded and unenforced Forest Protection program '661' has failed to prevent. A USAID-supported Payment for Environmental Services (PES) initiative, however, is harnessing market incentives and fiscal reforms to channel payments from Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) power and water utilities and private sector tourism companies to rural households in neighboring provinces to conserve standing forests. As it enjoys high-level GVN political support, the PES program stands to serve as a national, and ultimately regional model, as a well as a framework to incorporate future carbon offset payments. End summary. Sound of Chainsaws leads to National Park Crime Scene -------------- -------------- ¶2. (SBU) When, during EconOff's visit to the Central Highlands' Yok Don National Park (NP),the roar of a chainsaw broke the jungle silence, the park ranger serving as guide asked to borrow EconOff's cell phone. After the ranger called for reinforcements, a dozen Forest Protection Department (FPD) officers descended upon a makeshift loggers' camp and detained ten loggers, two chainsaws, and the bicycles on which they were smuggling large blocks of illegally cut wood out of the park. The ranking FPD officer noted that the local poachers were invariably too poor to afford the mandated fines, so instead suffered confiscation of their tools and a month of unpaid labor in the park. Despite this successful episode, the park staff and media report that the approximately 100 FPD rangers assigned to protect the forests and wildlife in the 285,000 acre park, Vietnam's largest, are fighting a losing war of attrition with local timber poachers. Underfunded and Unenforced GVN Program Fails Forests -------------- -------------- ¶3. (SBU) Denuded hillsides in Dak Lak province outside Yok Don NP -- as well as frequent media reports of illegally clear cut or burned forests throughout the Central Highlands -- attest to the failure of the GVN's efforts to enlist local stakeholders in forest protection efforts. Using public funds, Forest Protection program '661' contracts individual families to protect 75 - 100 acres of forest for an annual payment of roughly $200. While not an insignificant sum in the poverty stricken Central Highlands, $200 is insufficient incentive for families to actively protect forests, especially as they can illegally "sell" the timber for thousands of dollars, usually without fear of legal repercussions. As a senior FPD official told EconOff, "since the forest protection contracts are not policed, the program cannot succeed." Harnessing Market Incentives to Keep Trees Standing -------------- -------------- ¶4. (SBU) In neighboring Lam Dong province, a pilot USAID - supported payment for environmental services (PES) initiative will compensate the province's rural poor for protecting watershed forests that are the source of much of Bien Hoa's and HCMC's drinking water and hydroelectric power. Public utilities Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) and the Saigon Water Corporation (SAWACO) have contracted to pay environmental service providers $3.3 million in 2009. This includes an average $730 annual stipend to some 3,000 rural households in the Dong Nai river basin to maintain standing forests. Implementing NGO Winrock International plans to monitor compliance by purchasing satellite images (for one dollar per 2.4 acres) of the contracted areas with the agreement and support of public security agencies on this potentially sensitive issue. Rationale Incentives Get SOEs on board the PES express -------------- -------------- ¶5. (SBU) Winrock used technical data to make the link between deforestation, increased sedimentation and loss of operating capacity at their plants to convince an initially skeptical EVN and SAWACO that PES was an investment, not a cost. Winrock engaged the utilities in lengthy discussions about how to monetize the impact of siltation on turbine wear, decreased reservoir capacity, and unstable seasonal runoff (which leads to dry season power shortages) and the improvement in water quality HO CHI MIN 00000031 002.2 OF 002 brought about by forest floor filtration. These talks helped the utilities establish the monetary value of conservation efforts so that they could pass that value from power and water consumers (including hydropower, urban consumption and irrigation) to the rural poor protecting watershed forests. Fiscal Decentralization Key to Implementing PES -------------- -- ¶6. (SBU) The last building block for a successful PES framework was GVN policy changes to allow effective collection and distribution of environmental services payments. Winrock advised the Prime Minister's Office of Government on a fee system that allows government entities such as municipal water authorities to charge fees for environmental services, and on including PES in Vietnam's Biodiversity Law. Further fiscal decentralization, which allows HCMC utilities to transfer funds to environmental service providers in other provinces, bypassing Hanoi ministries, streamlines the process and increases efficiency. This is a first for the GVN and took place with full support and guidance from the Ministry of Finance. Comment -------------- ¶7. (SBU) The GVN's publicly-funded forest protection effort '661' has degenerated into a low-value rural anti-poverty program that is not fulfilling its stated function. The ambitious PES program being piloted in the Central Highlands, on the other hand, incorporates market incentives, progressive behavior by stereotypically retrograde SOEs, and an innovative market-based fee system for environmental services policies that is among the first of its kind in Asia. As a result it has tremendous potential to simultaneously advance economic development, reduce rural poverty and attain environmental protection goals. The PES project also appears to have high-level GVN political interest and support, indicating it can be replicated nationally, and serve as a regional model. The PES system also constitutes a framework into which carbon offsets payments could easily be incorporated, the value of which for Vietnam according to some climate change analysts could exceed $100 million annually. ¶8. (SBU) Specifically, the PES program is working with national and provincial officials to establish carbon offset payments for forest conservation in the Lam Dong province pilot site as a model for a national-level program. At the regional scale, Winrock is partnering with the Asian Development Bank, the Association of South East Asian Nations' Center for Biodiversity and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific to catalyze and implement national PES support programs across the region. The PES model will be replicated in Cambodia and Aceh at the request of the Cambodian and Indonesian governments under this regional program. End Comment. ¶9. (U) This cable was coordinated with Embassy Hanoi. FAIRFAX