On 27th July 2012, in Hanoi, VNFOREST in the collaboration with other international organizations such as International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Deutsche Gesellschaft f�r Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) has organized a consultation workshop on initial findings on Payment for Forest Environmental Services in aquaculture . Nearly 60 participants representing some ministries, agencies and departments at all levels and representatives from some international organizations such as: Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Netherlands Development Organization

(SNV).

During the workshop, three presentations by independent consultants have covered:

(1) international and national lessons learnt in the implementation of Payment for Forest Environmental Services policy,

(2) initial findings on forest environmental services in aquaculture for mangrove forest,

(3) initial findings on forest environmental services in aquaculture for land based forest.

The participants were divided into four groups to work together on discussing and presenting the findings related to the given topics.

Mr. Nguyen Nghia Bien, Director of Department of Planning and Finance, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, on the behalf of VNFOREST as workshop's chairman, has highlighted the initial findings by the experts, consultants and expressed his high appreciation on the valuable contribution of the workshop participants. Mr. Bien also expressed his expectation that the experts and consultants will learn from these initial findings, in order to continue broadening the research, and with the technical and financial support from the international organizations to help VNFOREST to complete the draft, submit to the Prime Minister to issue the Decision on the subjects, rates of payment, methods of payment for services such as spawning ground providing, feeding resources and natural breeding, forest water used for aquaculture, will be developed and widely applicable throughout the country.

At the consultation workshop, ICRAF and CIFOR had a joint presentation entitled "Lessons learnt from the implementation of Payments for Forest Environmental Services."

For more details, please contact the Mr. Dam Viet Bac, Project Management of Rewards, Use and sharing Payments for pro-poor Environmental Services (RUPES II) project in Vietnam at D.Vietbac @ cgiar.org

Resource: Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, http://dof.mard.gov.vn/tin-tuc/187/a-811/105.html. Date: 30th July 2012