WWF 23 Mar 09;
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.
