Over last 20 years, the Livelihood Sovereignty Alliance (LISO) have supported different indigenous ethnic minorities communities such as Hmong, Thai, Dzao, Kho Mu, Lao Lum, Malieng, Ede, Hre, Tay, Nung, etc. living in the critical watershed areas in Vietnam and Laos. As a result, over 62,387.18 hectares of the customary forest and land were granted to these communities as well as families living in those settings.
Mr. Hoang Van Duoc, HEPA staff taking care of native tree seedlings in the nursery (Picture: HEPA - 2016)
Following up the achievements of forest and land allocation, in so far, SPERI and CENDI – members of LISO have continuously facilitated the Mekong Ethnic Minority Community Networking and Eco-Trading (MECO-ECOTRA) and Young Indigenous Ethnic Minority Leadership Development (YIELD) to implement initiatives on ecological farming practices on the allocated forest and land. One of the primary elements in this ecological farming is to adopt an urgent action to enrich the sustainability of the forest ecosystem. This initiative targets three common forest land statuses: first, to restore barren land where agricultural cultivation is difficult due to the poor-quality soil, the high level of slope and low productivity; second, to replace exotic mono-plantations which potentially cause threats to the ecosystem as well as the long-term economic aspects of small holders farmers and communities; and third, to enrich poor forests where the natural regeneration process takes place slowly, thus, needing to be accelerated.
Above initiative is expected to achieve two objectives at the same time. On one hand, forests are developed sustainably to maintain its eco-services function. On another hand, and livelihood of indigenous ethnic minority peoples is secured in short-term, middle and long terms.
Activities of the initiative are organized and carried out by local indigenous ethnic minority individual, especially youths and entire communities. The approach methodology is to support communities in forest restoration and forest development based on the needs of the local people and their values and traditional knowledge of native species in particular settings.
Mr. Hoang Van Phuoc - ecological farm owner taking care of native trees (Picture: SPERI - 2016)
The above initiative of enriching tropical forest by native species and local knowledge has been so far technically and methodologically facilitated by by the Social Ecology Research Institute (SPERI) and Community Entrepreneur Development Institute (CENDI) with financial supports by the Nature Life-International (NLI), the Satoyama Development Mechanism (SDM) and Ecumenical Scholarship Program (ESP). Kindly click on below link to follow the progress.
Cao Quang Agro-Forestry and Ecological Service Cooperative 
