1. General Description:
ID:CN-24028
Project resulting from this CN: N/A
Note: CNs are developed into project proposals following consultation with donor(s).
1.1 Project Title:
Establishing a Pilot Plantation Forest Information Sharing and Wood Supply Chain
Traceability System in Vietnam

1.2 Submitting Country/ies:
Viet Nam

1.3 Specific Location & Country/ies/regions/areas benefitting from the project:
The forestry sector throughout the country; and the 11 piloting provinces locatingfrom the North to the South of Vietnam: Hoa Binh, Son La, Bac Giang, Lang Son,
Tuyen Quang, Yen Bai, Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Quang Nam, and Ca Mau.

1.4 Endorsement from ITTO Focal Point:
Endorsement from ITTO Focal Point_Vietnam_01_12_2023.pdf

1.5 Intended Project Duration (in months):30
1.6 Indicative Budget (in US$):ITTO

386,280

Counterpart

10,000

Total

396,280

1.7 Programme Line Focus
Emerging Issues and Innovation
1.8 Project Type
Pilot/demonstration project, Innovation, Other
Project Type - Other (please explain):
Legality and sustainability of timber and timber product/Forest industry.

1.9 Proposal Summary:
Up to the 31st of December, 2022, planted forest accounted for 4.656 million
hectares out of approximately 14.790 million hectares of the total forest area in
Vietnam. The area of planted forest has been growing year on year (especially from1998 to 2022) thanks to the country's reforestation efforts. Every year, the plantation
forest provides about 45 million cubic meters of round timber (estimated) occupied
for almost 75% of the total yearly round timber used in the country. In addition toimportant production of wood and non-wood products, planted forests provide
several other very important ecosystem services for the public. The effective andefficient management of the country’s plantation forest resources requires accurate,
up-to-date, and fully shared information system which is very important for making
sustainable management decisions and developing the plantation forest based on
the market base. In addition, the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) will become
applicable as of 30 December 2024. As a result, EUDR requires the establishment ofa sustainable Wood Supply Chain Traceability System in related countries including
Vietnam. However, there is no plantation forest information sharing and or wood
supply chain traceability system in Vietnam yet. Therefore, the main purpose of thisproject is to establish a pilot plantation forest information sharing and wood supply
chain traceability system for both the state and the private sectors in Vietnam. The
pilot system of this project is very important for developing a full plantation forest
information sharing and wood supply chain traceability system for Vietnam in the
coming years by mobilizing our national resources. The project’s outcomes will
directly benefit our Forestry Development Strategy to 2030, the Glasgow Leaders’
Declaration on Forests and Land Use, and the net zero emission goal to 2050 while
directly promote the sustainable forest management for the socio-economic
development in Vietnam.

2. Proponent Information:
2.1 Executing Agency Information:
Name of Agency/Organization/Institution:
Vietnam National University of Forestry (VNUF).

Name of main Contact Person:
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phung Van Khoa, Vice President of Vietnam National University ofForestry (VNUF).

Email:
khoapv@vnuf.edu.vn
Other E-mail address:
khoa_vice_pre@vnuf.edu.vn

Phone:+84 35 219 1968

Fax:
+84 24 33840063

URL:
https://vnuf.edu.vn/

2.2 Type of Organization:
University/Research InstituteType of Organization- other case:Vietnam National University of Forestry (VNUF) was established in 1964 by the
Vietnamese government and has been also currently under the management of the
Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).

2.3 Collaborating Agency/ies:
Name of Agency/Organization/Institution:
Department of Forest Protection, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development(MARD); Department of Forestry (MARD); and Vietnam Timber and Forest Products
Association (VIFOREST)

Name of main Contact Person:
Dr. Bui Chinh Nghia - Director of Department of Forest Protection, Dr. Vu Thanh Nam- ITTO Vietnam Focal Point - Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development; and Mr.
Ngo Sy Hoai (Vice President and Secretary General of VIFOREST)

Email Address:
nghia.tcln@gmail.com

Phone:
Dr. Bui Chinh Nghia (MARD): +94 90 327 6470; Dr. Vu Thanh Nam (MARD): +84 91
241 9475; Mr. Ngo Sy Hoai (VIFOREST): +84 91 323 0217

Fax:
Dr. Bui Chinh Nghia (MARD): +84 243 733 5685; Dr. Vu Thanh Nam (MARD): +84
243 843 8793; Mr. Ngo Sy Hoai (VIFOREST): +84 24 37833016

URL:
http://www.kiemlam.org.vn/

2.4 Relevant experience of EA:
VNUF, a leading forestry institution in Vietnam, has almost 60 years of outstanding
experiences in forestry and related sectors. VNUF has been conducted/participatedin many national and international projects related to spatial analysis, GIS, remotesensing, Forest Management Information System, Web-GIS based software, PFES
software, automated near real time deforestation detection/forest fire warning
systems, forest plant and wild bird identification software, Chain of Custody
management, etc.

3. Relevance:3.1 Conformity with ITTO objectives (ITTA, 2006) and priorities (current SAP):
ITTA, 2006: h. Improving market intelligence and encouraging information sharing on
the international timber market with a view to ensuring greater transparency andbetter information on markets and market trends, including the gathering, compilationand dissemination of trade related data, including data related to species being
traded; j. Encouraging members to support and develop tropical timber reforestation,
as well as rehabilitation and restoration of degraded forest land…; k. Improving
marketing and distribution of tropical timber and timber product exports…, promoting
consumer awareness; l. Strengthening the capacity of members for the collection,
processing and dissemination of statistics on their trade in timber and information …;
o. Encouraging information sharing for a better understanding of voluntarymechanisms…; q. Promoting better understanding of the contribution of non-timber
forest products and environmental services…; s. Identifying and addressing relevant
new and emerging issues. ITTO Strategic Action Plan (2022-2026): Strategic Priority(SP): Statistics and information — Improve the quality, availability and timeliness of
information on tropical forest product markets, supply chains and international trade,including challenges and opportunities related to market access, expansion anddiversification. * Targets to be achieved by 2026, by SP: 1. Governance andinvestment: 3) Develop and promote tools to monitor and increase transparency andprovide traceability in supply chains; 5) Promote actions to combat illegal trade intropical timber species and reinforce collaboration with CITES... * Targets to beachieved by 2026, by SP: 1. Capacity building in member countries: 22) Upscale
best practices, tools, scientific/research applications and innovation; 23) Enhance
training, education and extension, …; 25) Support initiatives to promote crosssectoral coordination at the national and local levels.

3.2 Relevance to the ITTO Programme Lines:
This project is completely in line with the ITTO’s Programmatic Lines as below:
Programmatic Line #1: Legal & Sustainable Supply Chains (LSSC): Goal: To
enhance capacity in tropical timber supply chains to meet the increasing demand forsustainability and assurance that products are from legal sources. ProgrammaticLine #4: Emerging Issues and Innovation: Goal: To address emerging/urgent issues
and innovation focused on achieving ITTA objectives that are not covered under theother programmatic lines.

3.3 Relevance to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Global
Forest Goals (GFGs) and other forest related global agenda:
For Sustainable Development Goals (SDG): This project is completely in line with thefollowing SDGs: SDG 1: No Poverty (because this project will help small-scale forest
owners/famers to increase their income from increasing the wood and forest
products once all information is shared to the public); SDG 8: Decent Work andEconomic Growth; SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure; SDG 13: Climate
Action; SDG 15: Life on Land; SDG 17: Partnerships to achieve the Goals. For the
Global Forest Goals (GFG): This project is completely in line with the following
GFGs: Global Forest Goal 1: Reverse the loss of forest cover worldwide throughsustainable forest management, including protection, restoration, afforestation andreforestation, and increase efforts to prevent forest degradation and contribute to theglobal effort of addressing climate change. Global Forest Goal 4: Mobilize
significantly increased, new and additional financial resources from all sources forthe implementation of sustainable forest management and strengthen scientific andtechnical cooperation and partnerships (4.5: The collection, availability andaccessibility of forest-related information is improved through, for example,
multidisciplinary scientific assessments). Global Forest Goal 5: Promote governanceframeworks to implement sustainable forest management, including through theUnited Nations Forest instrument, and enhance the contribution of forests to the2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (5.4 Forest-related issues and the forest
sector are fully integrated into decision-making processes concerning land use
planning and development). Global Forest Goal 6: Enhance cooperation,
coordination, coherence and synergies on forest-related issues at all levels, including
within the UN System and across Collaborative Partnership on Forests member
organizations, as well as across sectors and relevant stakeholders.

3.4 Relevance to submitting country’s policies:
This project is relevant to the following policies in Vietnam: The Forestry Law: Law
No: 16/2017/QH14: Article 36. Forest database; Article 102. Responsibilities for state
management of forestry by People's Committees at all levels; The Ministry of
Science has issued Decision 2979/QD-BKHCN – on promulgating the Plan of the
Ministry of Science and Technology to implement the “Project on implementation,
application and management of traceability system” to perform the tasks of “Projecton implementation, application and management of traceability system” wasapproved at Decision No. 100/QD-TTg dated January 19, 2019 of the Prime Minister;
Viet Nam Forestry Development Strategy in the 2021-2030 period, with a vision to2050: III. DIRECTION FOR THE FUTURE DEVELOPMENT: 1. Future direction fordevelopment in specific fields: To strengthen capacity on forest governance of forest
owners through establishing a forest resource monitoring and evaluation system,
promote the application of remote sensing and geographical information system(GIS), information technology in information management in the forestry system;
inventory, assessment of the country’s forest resource; development of communitybased forestry, ..., application of people-oriented approach. To improve capacity forforest owners so that they are capable enough to effectively monitor, manage forest,
to have 100% of forest owners being organization capable enough to monitor,
manage forest resources and prevent, fight forest fires; Decree No. 47/2020/ND-CP,
dated on the 9th of April, 2020 on Prescribing the management, connection andsharing of digital data of state agencies; On December 30, 2022, the Ministry ofAgriculture and Rural Development issued Circular No. 26/2022/TT-BNNPTNT
stipulating the management of traceability of forest products; The Glasgow Leaders’
Declaration on Forests and Land Use including the Vietnamese government, the Net
zero emission. to 2050.

3.5 Linkages to previous/ongoing ITTO and other projects/activities (if any):
Project 1: Strengthening and consolidating the national process for addressing illigal
logging and associated trade in Cameroon; ID: CN-21009; Project 2: Development
and Testing of National Forest Stock Monitoring System (FSMS) with Improved
Governance Capabilities at All Levels of the Forest Administration. ITTO Project PD
599/11 Rev.1 (M); Project 3: Traceability of Timber Produced by Forest Concessions
and Native Communities in Madre De Dios and Ucayali; PD 621/11 Rev.3 (M);Project 4: Promotion of sustainable domestic consumption of wood products in
Vietnam. ID:CN-21001; CN: PD922/21 Rev.1 (I).

4. Project synopsis:
4.1 Objectives (reflecting reference to elements within all ITTO Guidelines asapplicable):
The overall objective of this project is to promote the sustainable management of theplantation forest and trade in plantation forest resources/products including improved
market intelligence in Vietnam through improving forest governance, institutional law
enforcement capacity, stakeholder coordination and forest sector competitivenessbased on an innovative and transparent information sharing mechanism. The specificobjectives are the establishment and testing of an integrated, real-time, multi-tiered,online plantation forest information sharing and plantation forest wood/timbertraceability system for improving the governance capabilities at all levels in theforestry sector and instantly for the forest administration in the 11 provinces in thepiloting stage. The pilot system of this project is very important for developing a fullplantation forest information sharing and wood supply chain traceability system for
Vietnam in the coming years by mobilizing our national resources. The project’s
outcomes will directly benefit our Forestry Development Strategy to 2030, theGlasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, and the net zero emission
goal to 2050 and the other related national policies while directly promote thesustainable forest management for the socio-economic development andenvironmental protection in Vietnam.

4.2 Key problem(s) to be addressed:
There are 4 main problems this project to be addressed as below: 1. No plantation
forest information sharing system available in the country; 2. No wood/timber supply
chain traceability system available in the country; 3. The database of the plantation
forest is incomplete, inconsistent, not regularly updated; 4. The forest monitoring
technicians are not well trained, updated with the current spatial technologies; and all
the other issues related to the above-mentioned problems will be also addressed
directly/indirectly throughout the implementation of this project: 1. Non registeredlogging/timber harvest. 2. Forged Certificate of Timber introducing illegal timber into
the supply chain; 3. Lack of market information and access for the forest owners; 4.
The forest product buyers do not know the forest product sellers and vice versa; 5.
Falsification of species declaration to circumvent controls on high value tropical trees
as well as to lower tax and forest charges levied on production; 6. Lack of accurate
statistical timber species and volume/quantity harvested yearly; 7. Private Forest
owners and local farmers do not know where to advertise/publish their forest
information and forest products; 8. Falsification of timber origin and transshipments inorder to infringe on logging bans and restrictions in certain areas; 9. Forest productprice is not transparent; 10. License holders harvesting in excess of authorizedannual allowable cut; 11. Impossible to monitor the plantation forest management
activities; 12. Limit market information and access for the related traders such as
plantation forest materials, forest products processing companies, fertilizers and or
seedlings sellers, forest carbon credits buyers, etc.

4.3 Main stakeholders and beneficiaries:- The Department of Forestry and the Department of Forest Protection in the Ministryof Agriculture and Rural Development, and the VIFOREST; - The local forest
agencies, especially in the 11 piloting provinces of Vietnam; - The national and local
policy makers; - Timber, carbon credits, non-timber forest products processing andtrading enterprises; - The forest owners/timber growers (wood producers/suppliers),
especially, the private sectors, small-scale forest owners/famers; - Forest/forestry
related research institutes/university faculties and students, technical schools andvocational training centers (training institutions); - The EU communities and markets
since this project contributes to implement the the EU Deforestation Regulation(EUDR); - The system will be available online to all stakeholders, the public, and theITTO.

4.4 Key activities:
To meet the objectives, it is necessary to implement the following key activities: 1.
Conduct a literature review of Establishing a Plantation Forest Information Sharing
and Wood Supply Chain Traceability System; 2. Collect all related data, documents,
maps of the plantation forest in the pilot provinces; 3. Conduct field surveys using theParticipatory rural appraisal (PRA), remote sensing and expert methods for field
checking, to verify the collected data/maps; using the questionnaires and interviews
to collect feedbacks for establishing a Plantation Forest Information Sharing andWood Supply Chain Traceability System recommendations; useseminars/group/farmers discussions to raise awareness about the project objectives
and activities, etc.; 4. Organize technical workshops for getting recommendations forestablishing a Plantation Forest Information Sharing and Wood Supply Chain
Traceability System in Vietnam; 5. Normalize all maps, update all data based on thecurrent standards, create a database for next steps; 6. Design and develop thePlantation Forest Information Sharing module and the Wood/Timber Supply Chain
Traceability modules. All modules should be integrated in one complete andconsistent system for the public access via Web-GIS based development: 6.1.
Plantation Forest Information Sharing module; 6.2. Develop a Wood/Timber Supply
Chain Traceability module ensures 100% “Back to Stump” traceability forwood/timber production (adapted from ITTO Project PD 599/11 Rev.1 (M)); 6.3.
Develop a Verification of Legal Origin (VLO) (adapted from the ITTO Project PD
599/11); 6.4. Build an online, multi-tiered and integrated plantation forest information
sharing and Wood Supply Chain Traceability system with field data entry module
configured; 7. Conduct the Technical Infrastructure Procurement and Setup; 8.
Planning for Deployment for Field Testing; Creation and Submission of Project
Terminal Report; Submission/Turn-over of Documents/Project Outputs.

4.5 Expected outcomes and impacts, including innovation/transformation:
The main outputs of this project include: 1. A systematic report on literature review of
Establishing a Pilot Plantation Forest Information Sharing and Wood Supply Chain
Traceability System (PPFISSWSCTS); 2. A complete database for the
PPFISSWSCTS; 3. A PPFISSWSCTS including a Verification of Legal Origin (VLO);
4. An online, multi-tiered and integrated plantation forest information sharing andwood supply chain traceability system with field data entry module configured; 5. At
the end of the project, a final draft policy/ies for promoting plantation forest
information sharing and wood supply chain traceability system will be submitted to
the national authorities for approval. For the outcomes and impacts: this project will
significantly contribute to publicly share the information of the current plantation
forest in Vietnam including but not limited to the forest owner contact information,
species, wood volume, NTFPs, carbon credits and price, site conditions, wood price,
etc. Especially, the project will also create a system for plantation forest wood supply
chain traceability to meet the requirement of the EUDR. This project is an important
contribution for maintaining and developing plantation forest in Vietnam; promoting
legal wood/timber uses and sustainable tropical plantation forest management,
therefore ensuring the transparency, legality, consistency information and data for the
public; promoting practical activities for minimizing the deforestation and forest
degradation, greenhouse gas emissions, and biodiversity loss in the region. The
project will contribute to increase the income for all forest owners. The pilot system ofthis project is very important for developing a full plantation forest information sharing
and wood supply chain traceability system for Vietnam in the coming years. The
significance of the project output can be measured by its adoption and application in
the piloting provinces and then for the whole country.

4.6 Existing funding for (related) initiative(s)/established contacts to potential
donors:N/A

4.7 Any other information deemed necessary/important:
N/A4.8 Risk mitigation measures:
There are some main risks for this project implementation and the corresponding
mitigation measures, including but not limited to: (1) Lack of cooperation of project
partners (low): The project builds on a long-trusted partnership between VNUF, theDepartment of Forestry (MARD) and the Department of Forest Protection (MARD)
and the VIFOREST, and also the local forest management agencies in the 11 pilot
provinces. To mitigate this risk, clear job allocation, duties have been discussed andagreed upon the project partners; (2) Lack of commitment of relevant stakeholder
groups, coordination from the local communities and authorities (low): To mitigate
this risk, we have discussed with the relevant stakeholder groups, local communities
and authorities about this project and they all agreed to collaborate with us in
implementing this project, committed to provide support as much as they can; (3)Critical conditions in the field surveys and community communication works (natural
disaster, Covid-19, social instability) (low): The project sites include very wide range
of geo-socio-economic-biophysical conditions in the 11 pilot provinces. If working inan area is impossible, we will take the other locations instead to gain a sufficient
range of the real conditions; (4) Loss of critical competencies in the project (low): To
mitigate this risk, the project participants/members consist of a large range of
specialized experts in the fields of forestry, IT, spatial analysis, GIS and remotesensing, database development and Web design, polity makers, marketing, etc.; The
project will also contact the experts working in the similar projects such as“Development and Testing of National Forest Stock Monitoring System (FSMS) with
Improved Governance Capabilities at All Levels of the Forest Administration. ITTO
Project PD 599/11 Rev.1 (M)”; - The project will closely collaborate with ITTO anddonor(s) for guidance in implementing the project’s activities.

5. Indicative Budget (in US$):Indicative Budget (in US$):Description

ITTO

Counterpart

Total

Personnel

95,000095,000Sub-contracts

50,000050,000Travel and DSA

70,000070,000Capital Items

9,000

10,00019,000Consumables

20,0000

20,000Publication /30,000030,000Miscellaneous

35,000035,000

Total

309,000

10,000319,000

ITTO Project Monitoring

20,000-20,000

Annual/Final Audit

9,000

-

9,000

ITTO Programme

38,280-38,280ITTO Ex-post Evaluation

10,000-10,000

GRAND TOTAL

386,280

10,000396,280

Dissemination& Review

Support