Posted on November, 25 2021

Glasgow, 11th November - The session, hosted by WWF, explores innovative approaches to scale climate adaptation finance, especially with regards to increasing smallholder resilience by financing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and intervening along agriculture and forestry value chains. While also emphasising the importance of nesting project-level activities into an integrated landscape approach to achieve broader landscape objectives of inclusive development, increased resilience, and biodiversity conservation. One of the discussed financial mechanisms was the Landscape Resilience Fund (LRF) which is now active in the Central Annamites Landscape. It offers support to the SMEs like Luc Dong to increase the climate resilience of their operations and local smallholders through technical assistance and concessional loans to implement their climate-resilient business plans.

Luc Dong is located in the Central Annamites of Viet Nam, a region famous for its rich biodiversity and some remaining intact forests. However, along with human development, climate change poses severe risks to the region with more extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and hurricanes. This not only disrupts societies but also the supply chains, especially to enterprises like Luc Dong with its primary materials depending on nature. 

Awaring of this challenge, Luc Dong has carried out a project to restore and enrich both natural and plantation rattan areas. Mr. Tran Trung Hieu, the Vice-Director of Luc Dong who represented virtually at the event, explained how the second generation of the family business, with support of WWF in the past few years, has strived to transform their business in a sustainable way. It works closely with the local communities to help them regenerate and take care of existing forest whilst sustainably growing new rattan forest. By doing that, Luc Dong assesses suitable sites and timing for planting, tendering and harvesting based on weather patterns and landscape characteristics; performs cultivation training for the smallholders and improves its operations e.g. by applying solar panels for the electricity generation. This way they could secure their raw material supply with high-quality for international markets that require high-environmental and social standards and contribute to the resilience of people locally. During the Covid-19 period, the company could provide jobs for those who lost their livelihood due to other business shutdowns.

The COP26 closed with disappointment but there are still some positive notes including the recognition by world leaders that Nature must be at the heart of our response to climate crisis. To keep the target of 1,5 degree Celcus, investing in nature-based projects is one of the key solutions as Nature is our alliance in dealing with the climate emergency.