A
new sustainable rattan program recently
launched by WWF will help save the remaining
forests of the Greater Mekong Region – while
benefiting communities and pumping up local
economies.
Rattan is widely used
for food, furniture and other products and
traded extensively across the region, in
the European Union and worldwide markets.
Tonginn Keomany, a 70-year-old
Lao woman who lives in the village of Sopphouan
on the Vietnamese border is already counting
the benefits from the first trial phase
of the innovative program.
Like other farmers in
the area, she depends mainly on family-based
rice production and other small-scale crops
to feed her family.
“Rattan is good for
food and handicrafts,” said Tonginn, who
added that she hopes the project will continue
to be a success. “I weave lots of useful
things for the household.”
The program, A switch
to sustainable harvest rattan production
and supply launched on 5 March in Hanoi,
Vietnam, and will benefit many more villagers.
The program aims to
achieve cleaner and more efficient production
of rattan by reducing the use of pollutants
in its production, making the supply chain
of rattan more efficient so less is wasted,
and encouraging its sustainable use in Greater
Mekong forests.
This in turn will improve
the production of rattan and give communities,
governments and industries an economic incentive
to conserve forests.
By 2010 it is expected
that up to 100 villages in Cambodia, Lao
PDR and Vietnam will be working towards
a greener and sustainable management of
rattan production.
The sustainable rattan
program is part of ongoing WWF efforts during
the last three years to establish a community
based network for sustainable rattan harvesting
in six villages in Laos and Cambodia.
Many villages in the
Greater Mekong Region rely on the rattan
trade which accounts for 50 percent of their
total cash income, making this a major contributor
to poverty alleviation in rural areas.
“We have successfully identified key species
of rattan and are now in the process of
developing a viable model for sustainable
rattan management,” said Bouaphet Bounsourath,
the rattan project manager in Laos. “This
model includes the creation of seedling
nurseries, plantations, pilot research plots
as well as hands-on training in handicraft
manufacture
“We have helped the
villagers to organise themselves and also
established protected areas in the forest.
“This makes a big difference.
Previously there was no control and poorly
implemented forest management.”
Under the new program,
70 percent of rattan sales go to a village
fund which contributes to improving the
local school and health services. Thirty
percent goes to the individual villagers,
who also can take out micro loans at a 2
percent interest rate from the fund.
“Last year our village
earned 8,500,000 kip (approximately 1,000
USD) in additional income from rattan seedlings
and rattan cane,” said 43-year-old Sonephet
Keomany, the head of Sopphouan village.
Over the last three
years, the pilot WWF-IKEA Sustainable Rattan
Harvesting and Production Project (2006-2009)
has worked in two countries and among six
villages, demonstrating that community management
can result in sustainable production and
marketing of rattan.
The second phase of
the program is being funded by the European
Union with co-financing from the international
furnishings company IKEA and the German
development finance institution DEG.
“Another big win will
be that an increased number of rattan processing
companies will deliver environmentally friendly
products to Europe and other worldwide markets,”
said Thibault Ledecq, regional rattan program
manager.
