Viet Nam Celebrates International Biodiversity Day 2024 in Quang Nam
On the occasion of the International Biodiversity Day (IBD) 2024, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) in collaboration with the Quang Nam People’s Committee hosted the workshop “Implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) and National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) in Viet Nam” on 22nd May in Hoi An city, Quang Nam province. This year also marks the 15-year anniversary of Cham Island in Hoi An city, being recognised as a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve.
The workshop, centered around the IDB 2024 theme “Be part of the Plan”, aimed to foster dialogue between relevant organisations and stakeholders by sharing their best practices and achievements of the implementation of GBF and NBSAP in Viet Nam. It welcomed approximately 70 participants representing local authorities, ethnic minorities, scientists, protected areas, national and international development partners and conservation organisations.
The National Biodiversity and Conversation Agency (NBCA) of MONRE gave an overview of GBF and NBSAP goals, indicators and reporting indicators and a brief on progress towards NBSAP implementation in terms of policy and legislation development. Afterwards, updates on initiatives towards the implementation of GBF and NBSAP with the main focus on “Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures” (OECMs) from international development partners such as GIZ, WWF, IUCN and UNDP contributed to the discussion. GIZ emphasised the importance of providing guidance and support to potential OECMs sites. WWF and IUCN provided several models on community-based conservation, marine areas under military governance and management, marine aquaculture and tourism areas under enterprise governance and management which are potentially recognised as OECMs. UNDP highlighted that a large number of community-based biodiversity and natural resources conservation and sustainable use models have delivered effective conservation outcomes and can qualify as OECMs.
The discussion focused on the need for measures to enhance the GBF and NBSAP implementation including policy and legislation to enable local authorities and communities’ access to the state financial and technical support and guidance in timely and sufficiently manner, recognise and scale up successful community-based conservation models, encourage the involvement of ethnic minorities and local communities in biodiversity conservation, and scale up and sustain outcomes of projects supported by international development partners.