Strengthening Australia and Vietnam partnerships: Advancing research and understanding on designing and operating high integrity blue carbon market

Vietnam, with its long coastline, is vulnerable to climate change impacts. Coastal forests, thought of as a ‘protection forest’, make up just 3.5% of the total national forest area but they play a substantial role in generating local livelihood incomes, mitigating the impacts of storm surges and coastal erosion, and supporting carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation. Around 86% of these coastal ‘protection forest’ are made up of mangroves.

The Government of Vietnam has issued several policies acknowledging the importance of these ‘protection forests’, including its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), the Vietnam Forestry Development Strategy 2021–2030 with vision to 2050, and its National Climate Change Adaptation Plan for 2021–2030, which places significant emphasis on protecting and expanding mangrove area in Vietnam. Through its NDC and recently approved Decree 06/2022/ND-CP regulations on the carbon market, the Government of Vietnam has indicated the high priority it places on protecting and restoring mangroves and on setting up a forest carbon market (including blue carbon - carbon stored in coastal and marine environments) to generate a sustainable financing mechanism for effective implementation of climate change mitigation and adaptation policies.

Environment Institute (EI) researchers Dr Pham Thu Thuy, Prof Andrew Lowe, Prof Sarah Wheeler and Dr Alice Jones recently visited Vietnam to lead an international workshop “International lessons learnt on designing and operating effective, efficient and equitable blue carbon market”. This was made possible through funding from Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and Palladium and Union Bank of Switzerland (via Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)). The workshop was co-organised by CIFOR, Vietnam National Forestry University, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and Environment Institute, and was attended by key government agencies including the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE), Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), Ministry of Finance (MoFi), provincial government agencies, and the Australian Embassy. The workshop addressed the specific request of key government agencies to foster knowledge exchange with other countries, notably Australia, to improve legal frameworks for a high quality-high integrity blue carbon market and enhance stakeholders’ capacity to design and implement an effective, efficient and equitable blue carbon market and projects. This transformative partnership amongst CIFOR, Vietnam and the Australian institution (University of Adelaide) is expected to support Vietnam to operate its carbon market in 2028.

EI’s five project activities in Vietnam are aimed at providing policy makers and practitioners with information, tools and capacity to design and operate high quality forestry carbon market.  Strengthening EI’s partnerships in Vietnam, the team met with government agencies, key donors and leading research institutions and explored future research and funding opportunities to support Vietnam in designing and operating a high quality carbon market.