Alliance Partner Meeting in Xuan Thuy National Park, Vietnam

Written by Theo Ebbers Thursday, 16 December 2010 14:10

On December 3 and 4, The Xuan Thuy National Park Network in Vietnam organized a conference for local and regional Wetlands Alliance Partners to share results and achievements, experiences and expectations from their activities with the Alliance. Hosted by Xuan Thuy National Park, the conference was attended by CORIN-Asia, AIT, WWF, Alliance partners from Nam Dinh, Quang Nam and Kien Giang, Representatives from other nature reserves and national parks, the Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Studies and a number of local community group.

Led by presentations and inputs from the Xuan Thuy National Park Network (XTNP) the conference highlighted the need to link and balance environmental concerns with efforts to improve livelihoods. One of the highlighted examples is the effort of the local partner network to move ecologically harmful animal husbandry activities out of the wetlands conservation area and substitute these with alternative income generating activities.

These activities are driven by a local alliance of eight local partners, who share the same workplan and objective

Among the livelihood initiative promoted by the local alliance, the production of mushrooms has turned into a lucrative business that provides substantial improvement of people’s incomes.

The sharing of these experiences was highly appreciated by the participants, who expressed they the Alliance should provide more such opportunitiesto learn from each other, explore new ways of cooperation and thus strengthen the Alliance partnership.