Concept Note detail

Building Resilience Capacity for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation by Promoting Community Forest Landscape Restoration in Kratie and Mondulkiri Provinces in Cambodia

Cambodia

Kratie and Mondulkiri provinces, Cambodia

The proposed project “Building Resilience Capacity for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation by Promoting Community Forest Landscape Restoration in Kratie and Mondulkiri Provinces in Cambodia” has the specific objective is “to initiate a process of community forestland respiration and build capacity and outreach to support community forest landscape restoration and carbon sequestration in Kratie and Mondulkiri Provinces in Cambodia.” The project will address the problem of deforestation within communities forestry through engaging stakeholders to support participatory forest governance and forest landscape restoration options. That support will be accomplished by increasing the capacity and skills of stakeholders for conducting multi-disciplinary assessments of forest degradation levels and deforestation to propose appropriate interventions and scenarios for forest landscape restoration. The expected outputs of the project are to: • Officering and forest practitioners are enhanced via capacity regarding multi-disciplinary assessments of forest degradation levels and deforestation, interventions and scenarios for forest landscape restoration in the tropics; • Communities forestry will have their land registration forms completed for public-land registration processing; • Small-scale farmers get benefits through establishment of private forests in terms of direct involvement with the project; the short- and medium-term income generation will be produced through the establishment of agro-forestry practices on their private land; • Communities forestry will get benefits in terms of forest restoration, agricultural and agroforestry trainings, and other supports to improve Local livelihoods by direct involvement with project; and • At least 200 hectares of degraded forests of 6-10 the Communities Forestry and 50 hectares of private forests/agroforestry plantations are restored and/or established.

Name of Agency/Organization/Institution: Deputy Director of Department of Wildlife and Biodiversity of the Forestry Administration, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries

Mr. Hort Sothea

saysinlyrua@gmail.com

(+855) 17 592 338

(855) 23 212 201

https://fa.maff.gov.kh/

The Executing Agency will be the Department of Wildlife and Biodiversity (DWB) of the Forestry Administration in collaboration with agencies under the Forestry Administration of Cambodia, which include the Departments of Forest Plantation Development and Private Forests, and Forest Management and Community Forestry, the Kratie and Mondulkiri Provincial Departments of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Forestry Administration Cantonments, and local authorities.

Mr. Hort Sothea

sotheahort@gmail.com

(+855) 17 592 338

(855) 23 212 201

https://fa.maff.gov.kh/

- ITTO PP 836/17 Rev.2 (F) “Enhancing Capacity of Local Communities and the Forestry Administration to Effectively Implement Community Forestry Programs In Kratie and Mondukiri Provinces of Cambodia.” - AFoCO/012/2019 “The Registration of Small-Scale Private Forest Plantations.” - ITTO Project PP-A/54-331 “Enhancing Conservation and Sustainable Management of Teak Forests and Legal and Sustainable Wood Supply Chains in the Greater Mekong Sub-region”

Strategic Priority 1. Promote good governance and policy frameworks to enhance financing and investment in sustainable tropical forest management, legal and sustainable forest product supply chains and related trade. • Establish a practical mechanism for participatory forest landscape restoration, integrating Forest Landscape Restoration into provincial land use planning. • Initiate a process of community forestland registration. • Organize national workshops to share results and lessons learned from project implementation. Strategic Priority 2. Increase the contribution of the tropical forest sector to national and local economies and resilient livelihoods, including through further processing and trade in tropical timber and other forest products and services. • Conduct a series of trainings for local communities on intensive integrated agricultural techniques and agroforestry practices for building resiliency and adapting to climate change. • Provide support to local communities for livelihood improvement with linkages to Forest Landscape Restoration and agroforestry practices. Strategic Priority 3. Reduce tropical deforestation and forest degradation, enhance forest landscape restoration and the resilience of forest ecosystems to climate change, and conserve forest biodiversity and ecosystem services. • Build capacity and skills of stakeholders on multi-disciplinary assessments of forest degradation and forest landscape restoration approaches. • Develop guidelines on community forest landscape restoration. • Procure to distribute and plant seedlings of timber and fruit tree species and conduct tree planting activities to support forest restoration and afforestation activities. • Conduct comparative assessment, in collaboration with academic institutions, on the benefits of carbon sequestration of forest restoration sites of the project. • Establish a seedling nursery to support community forest restoration.

The proposed project is designed to respond to the thematic programme: Reducing Deforestation and Forest Degradation and Enhancing Environmental Services in Tropical Forests (REDDES), which will improve livelihoods by reducing deforestation and forest degradation and enhancing environmental services through the sustainable management of tropical forests, forest restoration, afforestation, reforestation and other related activities.

The project is designed to promote sustainable forest management and the contribution of forests and trees outside forests to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including through the strengthening of cooperation, coordination, coherence, synergies and political commitment and action at all levels. Sustainable Development Goal 15: Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and biodiversity loss. The proposed project will achieve four main Global Forest Goals to be achieved by 2030: 1. Reverse the loss of forest cover worldwide through sustainable forest management, including protection, restoration, afforestation and reforestation, and increase efforts to prevent forest degradation and contribute to the global effort of addressing climate change. 2. Enhance forest-based economic, social and environmental benefits, including by improving the livelihoods of forest-dependent people. 3. Increase significantly the area of protected forests worldwide and other areas of sustainably managed forests, as well as the proportion of forest products from sustainably managed forests. 4. Promote governance frameworks to implement sustainable forest management, including through the United Nations Forest Instrument, and enhance the contribution of forests to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The proposed project will incorporate various policies, strategies, and programs to support and complement the implementation of broader development plans in the design of the project that reflect Cambodia’s long-term national priorities, including those policies, strategies, and programs that are embedded in the following documents: • National Forest Program, 2010-2029; • Pentagon Strategy Phase 1, 2023-2028; • Cambodia Sustainable Development Goals 2017-2030; • Agricultural Development Master Plan (2030); • Cambodia’s Initial and Second Draft National Communication under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The proposed project is designed to support the connections from the ongoing ITTO project PD 836/17 Rev.2 (F): “Enhancing Capacity of Local Communities and the Forestry Administration to Effectively Implement Community Forestry Programme in Kratie and Mondulkiri Provinces of Cambodia.” There are many government plans/policies that will support the sustainability of the project after its completion. Those plans/policies include: • The Royal Government of Cambodia’s Declaration on National Forestry Policy 2002, which urges Cambodian citizens and the private sector to participate in forest conservation in order to ensure food security, reduce poverty and contribute to socioeconomic development. • The National Forest Programme 2010-2029 that prioritizes Community Forestry under Programme 4 in which the main areas highlighted include (i) Decentralised Forest Management (Community Forestry and Community-based Production Forestry); (ii) Partnership Forestry, Community Conservation Forestry; (iii) Identification and Formalization of Community Forestry, Strengthening the Capacity of Communities, and Improving Livelihoods; and (iv) Support Services for the Development of Community Forestry. • The Agricultural Strategic Development Plan (ASDP) 2022-2030 of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries that sets out the priority areas to improve productivity and add value to the production chain associated with the forest and wildlife sector by improving sustainable production and processing technology, as well as enhancing the capacity of Community Forestry in Cambodia. • Pentagonal Strategy Phase 1 (2023-2028): The Side 2 strategy of the Pentagon 4 priority is to ensure sustainable management of natural resources through strengthening harmonious and sustainable management, conservation, and protection and development of Cambodia’s important ecosystems by means of the continued management of forest and wildlife resources.

The Project objective is “to initiate a process of community forestland respiration and build capacity and outreach to support community forest landscape restoration and carbon sequestration in Kratie and Mondulkiri Provinces in Cambodia.”

Cambodia has a forest cover of 42.34% of the country’s land area. That was equivalent to 7.69 million ha as of 2022, reflecting a loss of approximately 3.41 million ha of forest between 2002 and 2022. The population continued to grow during that period from 12.71 million inhabitants in 2002 to 16.77 million in 2022. This suggests that the decline in forests and forest resources was apparently negatively correlated with an increase in the population. Deforestation and forest degradation remain major concerns in Cambodia, particularly on dryland along the Mekong river in Kratie and Mondulkiri provinces. Between 2002 and 2020, while the increase of forestland, including tree and rubber plantations, was 70,359 ha, the forestland converted into various categories of non-forest land was approximately 565,858 ha, increased to 821,690 ha of total non-forestland (32% of the two provinces’ area). In 2023, the non-forestland increased by another 3%, accounting for 35% of total non-forestland in Kratie and Mondulkiri provinces. Deforestation and forest degradation have occurred throughout the landscape forest areas in these two provinces while the common vision and engagement of stakeholders to support participatory forest governance has been limited. Poor knowledge to undertake multi-disciplinary assessments to determine the levels of forest degradation and deforestation so as to propose wise strategies for forest landscape restoration, as well as the absence of initiatives for promoting tree planting and forest plantations, moreover, has become an underlying constraint, among other challenges affecting forest landscape restoration activities in these provinces. These problems will be addressed by engaging stakeholders to support participatory forest governance and community forest landscape restoration for stakeholders by increasing their capacity and skills for conducting multi-disciplinary assessments of forest degradation levels and deforestation.

The main stakeholders will include the following: • Local governments (forest resource and land use managers and planners): to increase their opportunities to support local sustainable greener development, improve environmental conditions, restore natural degraded forests in community forest areas, and have opportunities to conduct afforestation activities on public land throughout the provincial forest landscape; • Local communities and community forestry members: to meet the majority of the local communities’ desires to plant the species of trees that would exhibit sufficient market demand to increase profitability, provide greater capacity for resilience characterized by their inherent tolerance to drought and flooding, contribute to the genetic conservation of indigenous tree species, and provide the multiple-purpose products. • Private sector: to provide opportunities for the private sector to participate in programs to establish small-scale private forest plantations that would enhance sustainable livelihoods while providing another contributory source to the expansion of forest cover and the reduction of forest degradation in natural forests. • Forestry Administration (central and provincial): to host, lead, and participate in stakeholder consultations, workshops, and meetings. • Academic institutions: to expand the opportunities to exchange knowledge and skills on research and development in forest restoration and resilience capacity enhancement to climate change adaptation, as well as local livelihood improvement on degraded land and degraded forests. The principal beneficiaries of the project will include (i) local communities and community forestry members, (ii) the private sector, including small-scale farmers and landowners, (iii) local governments and forest resource and land use management practitioners and planners.

Output 1: A process of community forestland registration is initiated. • Organize stakeholders consultation workshops to inform and engage key stakeholders to participate in the project’s activities. • Organize stakeholders’ consultations to establish a practical mechanism for participatory forest landscape restoration, integrating Forest Landscape Restoration into provincial land use planning. • Support the process of community forest land registration as a model to secure sustainable community forest management and forest governance, ensuring compliance and conformity with forestland-related policies and regulations. Output 2: Stakeholders’ capacity building and outreach for Community Forest Landscape Restoration are promoted. • Build capacity and skills of stakeholders on multi-disciplinary assessments of forest degradation and forest landscape restoration approaches. • Conduct a series of trainings for local communities on intensive integrated agricultural techniques and agroforestry practices for building resiliency and adapting to climate change. • Provide support to local communities for livelihood improvement with linkages to Forest Landscape Restoration and agroforestry practices. • Develop guidelines on community forest landscape restoration. Output 3: Forest restoration along with the assessment on benefits of carbon sequestration in the project sites is conducted. • Conduct field assessments to identify the potential areas for forest restoration on degraded forest in CFs. • Procure seedlings of timber and fruit tree species to support forest restoration and afforestation activities on 200 ha of degraded forest in Community Forests and distribute for establishment of 50 ha of private land • Conduct comparative assessment, in collaboration with academic institutions, on the benefits of carbon sequestration • Establish a seedling nursery to support community forest restoration.

The expected outcomes of the project: • The capacity of at least 30 stakeholders including officers and forest practitioners is enhanced regarding multi-disciplinary assessments of forest degradation levels and deforestation, interventions and scenarios for forest landscape restoration; • At least 2-6 CFs will have their land registration forms completed; • At least 10-30 small-scale farmers get benefits through establishment of private forests in terms of direct involvement with the project; the short- and medium-term income generation will be produced through the establishment of agro-forestry practices on their private land; • 6-10 CFs will get benefits in terms of forest restoration, agricultural and agroforestry trainings, and other supports to improve Local livelihoods; and • At least 200 hectares of degraded forests of CFs and 50 hectares of private forests/agroforestry plantations are restored and/or established. The expected impacts of the project: • The 200-250 ha of restored forests and man-made forests will contribute to an increase in forest cover and carbon emissions reduction after completion of the project; • The number of local community forest landscape restoration experts will be increased to contribute to large scale forest landscape restoration in the two provinces; • The capacity and expertise in Forest Landscape Restoration options to restore green cover on dryland and drought-prone areas will lead to implementation of best practices at the national level for large forest restoration planning activities; • At least 6-10 communities forestry would play a model roles for communities forest landscape restoration in the two provinces; • The capacity of carbon sequestration is increased annually; • The supports of the project would possibly contribute to enhancing of monetary values and other co-benefits through tree plantation development that the trees will generate additional income for the local communities.

Currently, there is no existing funding. The proposed project will be submitted to the ITTO and the in-kind contribution of the Royal Government of Cambodia will be included in the proposed project budget.

In order to meet the Goals of the the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the proposed project site was chosen to focus on dryland areas using Google Earth Engine (Vegetation Health Index--VHI and Standardized Precipitation Index—SPI) as illustrated in Figure 1 and Figure 2, respectively. At least 6-10 community’s forestry that will be selected according to a review of the study, and target areas to be defined as project areas for conducting tree planting and tree plantation establishment available on public and private land, will be carried out by means of a feasibility study at the commencement of project implementation.

• There is a lack of interest among stakeholders in supporting forest governance, especially with respect to forest restoration in community forests. That risk will be mitigated by redoubling efforts to convince provincial governors of the importance of forest restoration activities in community forests by means of on-going discussions with leaders of the Forestry Administration and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. Those interventions will be linked to contemporary cross-cutting reforestation issues that are high priorities of the Royal Government of Cambodia that need to be archived by national and provincial levels. • There is also a concomitant limited interest among private sector and small-scale farmers to establish private forest plantations since, in their assessment, the long-term benefits of establishing and maintaining those plantations would not be considered sufficient compensation, especially in the short run, for the costs and efforts required to establish and maintain those plantations. That risk will be mitigated by raising awareness among private sector and small-scale farmers of both the short- and long-term benefits of establishing plantations. • Market inflation that results in higher costs for tree seedling procurement during the implementation of the project is an additional risk associated with the required procurement of tree seedlings. The risk associated with those higher costs will be mitigated by the establishment of procurement contracts with private nurseries at the commencement of the project. • There may also be some risk associated with unforeseen weather events such as those accompanying severe drought, as well as other similar occurrences affected by El Nino conditions, that could affect tree seedling survival rates. The risks will be mitigated by assessing the potential adaptive capacity of each preliminary-selected species.

The proposed project is designed to support the connections from the ongoing ITTO project PD 836/17 Rev.2 (F): “Enhancing Capacity of Local Communities and the Forestry Administration to Effectively Implement Community Forestry Programme in Kratie and Mondulkiri Provinces of Cambodia.”