On March 21, USAID organized a symposium in the forest to highlight USAID’s support for forest conservation and the achievements of Payment for Forest Environmental Services (PFES) in Vietnam. The event was held in collaboration with MARD and Thanh Hoa province. Since 2008, USAID has supported the PFES system, which provides financial incentives to over 500,000 rural households in communities in critical ecosystems to protect over 23,000 square miles of forested area, and helps Vietnam sequester 20 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent annually. To-date, PFES has raised over $1 billion to conserve 40% of Vietnam’s forest area from companies and utilities that benefit from downstream environmental services.
As a result of PFES, the financial benefits of sustainable environmental stewardship are invested directly in the communities responsible for ecosystem care, supporting development and sustainable livelihoods.
USAID’s Mission Director Aler Grubbs commemorated this day by highlighting the United States’ and Vietnam’s joint efforts to protect forests in an op-ed published by Thanh Nien newspaper.
