The project: Capacity-building
Training and enlisting locals to manage the forest
The other key aim of the Central Annamites Initiative, which the MOSAIC project is designed to meet, is to ensure that natural ecosystems continue to function. This is important if the area's global important biodiversity is to be preserved and local people protected against floods and the devastating consequences of extensive soil erosion to their livelihoods.
Deep in the rainforest
To do this the MOSAIC project has taken a two-pronged approach. While Mr. Hardcastle spends his time engaging villagers in the management of their forests, his colleague, conservation biologist Barney Long, is deep in the rainforest methodically studying the status and distribution of and threats to the wildlife that is so important to conserve.
He finds even the frustrations exhilarating. "The trees are just too big!" he exclaims after three days trekking the forest floor searching for just the right size trunks on which to attach his camera traps. He's looking for evidence of some of the region's most elusive creatures, such as the douc, possibly the prettiest of all primates, or the small population of Asian elephants which still inhabits these forests.
He would also be thrilled to catch on film such rare endemic species as the saola, one of five large mammals discovered in this region in the last decade, or the Edward's pheasant, thought until just recently to be extinct.
A unique biodiversity of global significance
Because of the amazing wildlife, Quang Nam province is one of the most critical areas in the Greater Annamites, identified by WWF to be among 200 ecoregions on the planet which are of the highest priority for conservation. The rich and unique biodiversity of these verdant rainforests are not only of local and national importance but of global significance as well.
From logging the forest, to managing it
But while Quang Nam has more forest coverage than any other province in the Central Annamites, state forest rangers do not have the necessary conservation skills, most having previously overseen logging operations and plantations.
As part of the project, rangers are being trained to better manage and monitor the forests, so that they continue to play their part in ensuring clean drinking water and for preventing the ever more prevalent flooding in the area.
At the same time, to tap into the wealth of indigenous knowledge no training can provide, local villagers are being enlisted for teams to monitor the forest and protect it from poachers and encroachers, and to ensure that local use of the forest is sustainable.
The village forest protection teams, known as Quan Ly Bao Ve Rung Thon (QLBVRT) in Vietnamese, in nine Ka Tu villages of Tabhing commune, are now a local and legal force in the fight against forest loss. Each team has five or six members, all with a deep and seasoned knowledge of the local forests.
A total of 50 local rangers are now actively patrolling Tabhing's forests, with detailed routes and strategies for monitoring and enforcing local forest law.
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According to A'Viet Bu , a local villager who took part in developing the 3D model of his commune, "It is also good that the government and the people are able to collaborate to protect the forest. Everyone is happy about this."
