Formal kick-of meeting for our project “Community resilience and biodiversity conservation in Nakai District”

On 24 December 2019, we officially launched our 3-year project (2019-2022) Community resilience and biodiversity conservation in Nakai District with a partners kick-of meeting involving Nakai District’s authorities and stakeholders. A follow-up technical meeting will be carried out in January 2020.

Participants to the kick-of meeting in Nakai District including representatives from the Governer office, District office of Natural Resources & Environment (DoNRE), District office of Agriculture and Forestry (DAFO), Nam Theun 2 Development Fund (NT2DF), Nakai – Nam Theun National Park Authority, and Anoulak team (Lampheuy, Kongphet, Laythong and Camille)

Our project manager, Dr. Lampheuy and her two assistants, Mr. Khongphet and Ms. Laythong, will oversee and implement the activities under this project. We are very pleased to welcome them into our team!

Presentation of the project’s objectives to local partners and stakeholders by our Project Manager Dr. Lampheuy

Natural resources and biodiversity are under severe threat in the region due to illegal hunting and unsustainable harvest both for trade and subsistence. Local communities in Nakai District are highly reliant on natural resources for their livelihoods (the food security and income generation are largely dependent on unsustainable natural resources harvest).

With this 3-year project our vision is to build resilient communities (notably in terms of sustainable income generation and food security, via entrepreneurship and technical skills) to contribute to the conservation of biodiversity in Nakai District, notably in the Nakai-Nam Theun National Park.

Project objectives and focus

This pilot 3-year project will particularly focus on:

• Natural resources management including value chain and marketing of native Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) and the management of their use by local communities (e.g. regulations etc.)
• A community sustainable ecotourism farm for training and support on sustainable farming practices and alternative sustainable business development (notably focus on youth leadership coaching and cooperative strengthening)

Project approach and partners

We are collaborating with the Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Development (CIRAD) to apply the Capacity Development for Agricultural Innovations Systems (a global partnership to make agricultural innovation systems more efficient and sustainable in meeting the demands of farmers, agri-business and consumers and help improve food security).

Some of our key strategic approach and principles under this project include:

• Based on local context (relevance, needs, demand) and local knowledge
• Bottom-up approach
• Leadership and entrepreneurship coaching approach
• Community-led and ownership
• Functional capacity first: individual-level to hamlet-level to community-level, then technical capacity support
• Learning-by-doing, adaptive approach
• Pilot approach (to be scaled up for long-term sustainability)
• Collaborative approach

Several other partners will intervene as advisors during the project (including experts on natural resources management and agro-ecology practices [in November 2019, EcoAsia came for a first consulting mission]).

This project is supported by the Nam Theun 2 Development Fund and other private foundations.