Posted on November, 08 2023

On November 3, Mr. Prasanna De Silva - WWF Executive Director, Country Offices Management - had a meeting with Mr. Le Cong Thanh - Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment to strengthen the cooperation between two sides on nature conservation in Viet Nam.
 
To open, the Deputy Minister highly appreciated the positive impacts of programmes jointly implemented by WWF and the Ministry and acknowledged WWF's supports in the areas of nature conservation, environmental protection and response to climate change in the recent time. 
 
The Deputy Minister also updated on Viet Nam's proactive implementation of its commitments at COP26: "Viet Nam sees this as an opportunity to transform toward a circular and low-carbon economic model. We are seriously realising our commiments and invite WWF to continuously cooperate and support the goverment to achieve the Net Zero target.” He also call for WWF’s cooperation in implementing Just Energy Transition Project (JETP), biodiversity conservation, plastic pollution, climate change, as well as in awareness raising activities. 
 
To response, on be half of WWF, Mr. Prasanna De Silva admired the Ministry’s as well as the government’s efforts to translate international commitments in to action plans such as New Zero, NBSAP, Plastic treaty, wild bird protection, ect. WWF is proud to join hands with the Ministry in these activities. 
 
He once again affirmed WWF's commitment to supporting the Government in implementing its Net Zero commitment, equitable energy transition efforts, conservation projects, reducing ocean plastic waste and responsing to climate change.
 
Both sides expressed their desire to continue tightening cooperation in the coming time and look forward to high-level discussions at COP 28 in December.
 
On the same day, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien also had a meeting with Mr. Prasanna to discuss cooperation in important areas such as biodiversity conservation, promoting green consumption, nature-based solutions and building replicable landscape models.
 
The Deputy Minister highly appreciated the strategic cooperation with WWF over the past years, especially after signing the Memorandum of Cooperation between the two sides in February 2022.
 
The Deputy Minister shared that Viet Nam's agricultural sector has set very specific goals and objective: Ecological Agriculture Development which must be integrated in economic, social and environmental values. The Ministry is also promoting nature-based solutions, green growth, green consumption, and sustainable agricultural and rural transformation with the three important pillars: Ecological agriculture - Modern countryside - Smart farmers.
 
With these goals, the Ministry supports WWF's long-term conservation strategy in Viet Nam, at the same time expresses its desire to work with the organisation to build a landscape model that could be replicable to others to improve the ecosystem functions, increase climate change resilience and to restore biodiversity in these landscapes. Working with WWF to implement programs under the MOU and One Health Partnership signed in February 2022 is also a priority of the Ministry. 
 
In the future, the Ministry hopes that WWF and other international conservation partners will continue support the Ministry in biodiversity conservation, water resources, fisheries, forestry, and the prevention of zoonotic diseases. The Deputy Minister also express the interest of working with WWF to build the Viet Nam for Life initiative, focusing on the Mekong Delta region. 
 
Following the Deputy Minister's words, Mr. Prasanna congratulated the Government of Viet Nam and the Ministry for achieving significant achievements in biodiversity in recent times. WWF has been present in the country for more than 30 years and has been honored to cooperate with the Ministry in conservation for many years, especially on a number of large-scale and impactful projects in the past few years such as BCA and STW projects and other conservation programs.
 
WWF identifies Viet Nam as one of the priority countries and is in the process of building a program to promote favorable solutions in the Central Viet Nam. There are currently commitments from many sponsors such as Velux, Apple, International Paper, Cisco and WWF hope that the Letter of Intent (LOI) will be signed soon based on the consensus of both parties. Covid has caused significant damage and WWF is making efforts to accompany the Ministry in implementing the One Health and Food program.
 
WWF-Viet Nam recently reviewed its strategy with a 30-year vision and continues to consider the Ministry as a strategic partner. With WWF-Viet Nam team and international experts, along with the support and cooperation of the Ministry's leadership, a great deal in conservation could be achieved.