Core area “Conserving nature and natural resources, protecting life on Earth” Sustainable forest management and biodiversity conservation

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A farmer with mangrove seeds and seedlings

Since the 1970s, the country's forest areas have decreased significantly as a result of the Viet Nam war, illegal logging, and slash-and-burn farming. While the country's forest areas have grown again thanks to reforestation programmes, the quality of its forests has declined, which is posing a growing threat to biodiversity and climate resilience and reducing the forests' ability to act as natural carbon sinks.

Viet Nam is one of the world's biodiversity hotspots. With support from Germany, Viet Nam has made biodiversity conservation and sustainable natural resource management part of its national legislation. At present, the BMZ is supporting, among other things, efforts to make smallholder forest farms and plantation forests more sustainable and to introduce participatory management of protected areas.

Moreover, Germany is assisting the country in implementing the Voluntary Partnership Agreement between Viet Nam and the European Union concerning legal timber (FLEGT), which was signed in 2018. According to the Agreement, all timber that is exported from Viet Nam to the EU must come from demonstrably legal sources. This helps to strengthen deforestation-free supply chains. In this connection, Germany is providing advice on how to adjust the legal framework, build the capacity of forestry businesses and authorities, and implement the due diligence obligations of enterprises and governmental monitoring bodies.

The BMZ also supports several regional programmes with activities in Viet Nam, helping the country to dispose of waste in an environmentally sound way and developing a circular economy for plastic, so as to reduce marine litter inputs.