REDD+ Situation in Lao PDRThong Eth Phayvanh (Department of Forestry, Lao PDR)

I would like to share with you about the REDD situation in Laos that we have been implementing since2007.

For the background of the forests in Laos, traditionally Laos has rich forests, particularly in the mid-1960s
which were covered 70% by forests.

As other countries in Asia, population affects directly and indirectly

on forest resources from food in the rural areas and also from the hydropower and the socio-economic
development for the country.

Unfortunately, the forest cover has been decreased dramatically to 47% in

1992 and then in 2010, the last forest cover assessment indicated that forest cover in Laos is only 40%.
Now, Laos has a clear strategy to recover forest covering.

The main target is to recover forest to 65% by2015 and then 70% in 2020.
The main approaches to meet the target are: (1) protecting the existing forests (40% or 9.55 million ha; (2)rehabilitation of degraded forest areas (5.85 million ha); (3) expansion of tree plantation (0.15 million ha);and at the same time providing alternative livelihood improvement practices for rural people. Thus
conserving and rehabilitating forest cover through internalization of hidden value of forest by realizing

REDD+ concept is a national agenda recently.

Recognizing such as the serious situation, Laos made considerable efforts towards capturing the REDD+
opportunity.

The REDD Taskforce was established for coordination of REDD initiatives since 2008.

We

are participating in the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility with the World Bank and also developed aReadiness Preparation Proposal. Simultaneously feasibility studies and REDD+ demonstration activities
have started since 2010, assisted by the multilateral, bilateral, and international NGOs.

Challenges in the range of levels are on-going. Particularly, forestry law as a backbone of legislation offorest governance is in a process of major revision in order to play a role of a basis for legal framework onREDD+. The Department of Forestry also tries to approach REDD+ mitigation activities in the field withdifferent key concepts with developing partners, such as GIZ, Finland, and the Japanese Government’sJICA. Other issues include the Reference Emission Level, MRV System, and also Benefit Sharing andDistribution are under developing with development partners including the Japanese Government.

This map shows the location that REDD+ activities are being carried out in Laos. JICA project orPAREDD 1 is now implementing REDD activities in Luang Prabang Province in the north of Laos. Youmay know that Luang Prabang is a World Heritage city.

For the institutional arrangement, there are many countries about the REDD Project. They are at thenational level particularly with the Department of Forestry under the MAF or the Ministry of Agricultureand Forestry and Department of Forest Resource Management under MONRE, the ministry of national
resources and environment.

We work together and are responsible for the REDD Project in Laos.

Wealso have as I mentioned the REDD Taskforce lead by the Director General of Department of Forestry.

We have established a REDD office under the Department of Forestry and it acts as the secretariat and now
we are trying to set up technical groups which comprise of many partners or stakeholders from government
agencies and also from private NGOs. This is about the institutional arrangement that I mentioned.

About consistency among levels, we have set up at the different levels, at the national level, at sub national1An approach to mitigate deforestation and forest degradation at village and village cluster levels in northern

Laos. (http://www.jica.go.jp/project/english/laos/006/news/general/110727.html)

or provincial level and also at project level.

At the national level, we prepare satellite images from 2005 to 2010, and then we analyze it and then use
the forest map as a database.

This is at the sub national level in case of Luang Prabang Province.

This is the project level in case of PAREDD. I would not like to go in detail because it was alreadymentioned by many speakers.

My last point, there are many discussions on the consistency. Particularly on the system that they use to
avoid inconsistency among levels and initiatives. There are some points that should be addressed here.
We should apply the same satellite image and employ the same forest type classification and also we shouldemploy the same emission factors for estimating the carbon stocks. Also a national benchmark maps anddatabases are the foundation of consistent monitoring or evaluation. Capacity development at all levels isvery important that we have to take into account.
Finally, I would like to say that REDD is something that is very technical and requires long-term (10years+) engagement from government, from people, and also financing from donors for knowledge
building, for technology transfer, and also for capacity building particularly at different levels.