Hanoi (VNA) – Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has approved a projecton sustainable forest management and forest certification.

The project aims to focus on sustainable forest resource management and usewhile preserving biodiversity and protecting ecological environment and forestenvironment service values. It is also to promote the granting of forestcertification in Vietnam that will recognise legal wood sources in order tohelp Vietnamese wood quality for domestic and international market criteria.

Accordingly, the project will certify 300,000 hectares of forests by 2020, with up toone million additional hectares certified by 2030. The areas in question aremanaged by organisations, households and the protection forest managementboard.

The goal is to establish planted forests as a source of wood to ensure at least80 percent of Vietnam’s exported wood products are sustainably sourced.

In turn, this will reduce poverty and hunger among forest carers whileexpanding the forestry sector.

Vietnam will also recognise certificates issued by international organisations.

The project requires local authorities to use sustainable forest managementpractices to qualify for the certification.

Forest owners are encouraged to connect with wood processing businesses to forma coherent production chain.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has been assigned to instructrelevant businesses and localities to implement the project.

Vietnam currently has 235,000 hectares of certified forests, including 88,000 hectares ofnatural forests and 147,000 ha of planted forests.-VNA