Team Leader for Developing Sustainable Forest Management Plans

Consultancy announcement

Position: Team leader for developing GESI mainstreamed Sustainable Forest Management Plans for three target communities in CFM demonstration sites in Nghe An province for the USAID Vietnam Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) Project, RECOFTC Viet Nam

Sub-Activity Code: 1.2.5.1&1.2.6.1 Develop and implement GESI integrated forest management plans for demonstrating CFM communes

Estimated number of consulting days: about 55 working days, from June till September 2022

Application deadline: May 20, 2022

At RECOFTC, we believe in a future where people live equitably and sustainably in and beside healthy, resilient forests. We take a long-term, landscape-based and inclusive approach to supporting local communities to secure their land and resource rights, stop deforestation, find alternative livelihoods and foster gender equity. We are the only non-profit organization of our kind in Asia and the Pacific. We have more than 30 years of experience working with people and forests, and have built trusting relationships with partners at all levels. Our influence and partnerships extend from multilateral institutions to governments, private sector and local communities. Our innovations, knowledge and initiatives enable countries to foster good forest governance, mitigate and adapt to climate change, and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda.

The USAID Vietnam Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) Project supports the Government of Viet Nam to reduce carbon emissions associated with deforestation, degradation of natural forests and poor plantation management. The project implements a ‘green prosperity’ approach that strengthens local communities’ ability to protect their natural resource base and reduce emissions while building a strong foundation for sustainable livelihoods and equitable economic growth.

The project works in seven provinces: Lao Cai, Son La, Hoa Binh, Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, Quang Tri and Quang Nam. It focuses on five main objectives:

1. Strengthening community forest management
2. Promoting conservation-friendly enterprises
3. Improving law enforcement to tackle environmental crimes
4. Enhancing the management of production forests
5. Mobilizing domestic resources

The Project will be implemented during the period 2020-2025 by DAI in collaboration with RECOFTC and Preferred by Nature as partners, with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) as the counterpart and the Management Board of Forestry Projects (MBFP) as project owner.

RECOFTC is implementing Objective 1 by improving and expanding community forest management in the seven target provinces, in close coordination with other partners and Viet Nam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

RECOFTC Viet Nam is now inviting applicants for a Team leader for developing Sustainable Forest Management Plans which incorporating GESI for communities who are allocated forest land in demonstration sites on CFM in Nghe An provincefor the USAID Vietnam Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) Project.

Background

Background

Forest dependent communities’ participation is increasingly recognized as an important factor in effectively maintaining forests. Communities have been engaged into forest management and protection in various forms.

Under the SFM Project, the concept of community covers two forms of local people's participation in forest management. The first modality is community forest management (CFM) in which residential communities/villages manage their allocated forests. This also covers the modality where communities manage household’s allocated forests as a community group (community forest household groups). The second modality is community-based forest management (CBFM) in which village communities manage contracted forests with protection forest management boards. In Fiscal Year 2021, the Project conducted the CFM baseline assessments which reflected the status of community forests and proposed potential sites to improve and expand community forestry management.

A residential community is recognized by Forestry Law, as one of the seven forest owners which is an important milestone in promoting community forestry in Viet Nam, towards sustainable management of natural forests. Indeed, many successful models of community forest management prove communities’ capacities in effective management of forests, through which they enjoy considerable benefits from forests. Nevertheless, by the end of 2020, communities in seven provinces managed only 373,731 hectares of forests or 9.7 percent of total forestlands in the Project sites. CFM modality has been facing various key challenges such as limited access to their entitled tenure over forests and forest land; community forests are mostly degraded or poor which fail to provide adequate benefits and maintain communities’ commitments on forest protection and management.

With CFM modality, local communities can access different financial sources, including but not limited to forest protection expenditures, PFES program, NTFP income, joint cooperation/investment and other credit programs to support communities to more effectively fulfill the roles and responsibilities of forest owners under CFM.

In order to strengthen the capacity of the community to manage, protect, sustainable use and develop the allocated forest resources, the community will actively develop a community sustainable forest management plan (SFM Plan) with support from the SFM Project. Through this process, the community will effectively perform the role of forest owner to protect the forests, promote multi-purpose of forest, and protect the environment of the forest, increase the supply capacity of forest and ensure the long-term use of forest products, especially NTFPs. Communities can also effectively explore the potential of eco-tourism, cultural tourism, and environmental education. This process strengthens capacity of the community, towards self-sufficiency in part of financial resources through revenue from forest protection, from PFES, from sustainable exploitation of non-timber forest products, from organizing ecotourism activities to contribute to economic development, poverty reduction, and sustainable livelihood improvement.

Composition of the consultant team:

To carry out the task of developing a sustainable forest management plan for communities that have been allocated land and forests, the SFM Project is seeking to recruit a team of consultants including:

• Consultant 01: is the team leader, responsible for organizing, coordinating, assigning, checking and supervising team members during the implementation. The team leader will directly participate in the survey, development of intervention activities, coordinate forest inventory and synthesize the development of sustainable forest management plans for the selected communities.
• Consultant 02: is a team member, responsible for carrying out the tasks of surveying, developing interventions, participating in forest inventory, developing community forest protection conventions.
• Consultant 03: is a team member, responsible for performing forest inventory tasks, with the participation of the team leader and consultant 03.

The CFM Consultant team will also cooperate with Expert on Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) to ensure proper integration of GESI considerations into CFM planning processes.

Objective of the consultancy

Develop sustainable forest management plans for the communities whose allocated forests through collecting, synthesizing and analyzing information/data according to current regulations in a participatory manner with integration of Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) considerations. The GESI integration will need to ensure at least 35% of female and ethnic minorities participation into the formulation process who will be promoted to effectively participate into implementation of CFM activities. Women and ethnic minorities are also empowered to be presented in the management boards of CFM demonstration models.

The CFM plans will be the basis for the implementation of tasks such as: forest protection and development, sustainable use of forest resources, capacity building for communities to ensure the good implementation of the sustainable forest management plans in the future.

Tasks of the team leader, consultant 01

1. Organizing, assigning tasks, checking and supervising the activities of the consultant team: Clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of team members

2. Collecting relevant information and documents:

• Collecting and synthesizing information and related documents to develop a community SFM Plan:
  
  • Information and data on natural and socio-economic conditions
  • Information and data on the current status of management, protection, use and development of community forests.
  • Other relevant information and documents.

3. Coordinating the implementation of forest inventory tasks.

• Coordinating with the Forest Inventory consultant to perform the following tasks:
  
  • Non-timber forest products inventory,
  • Forest plant inventory;
  •  Forest animal inventory;
  •  Determination of forest biomass and carbon stock.

4. Developing participatory and GESI-integrated community sustainable forest management plan:

The formulation of sustainable forest management plans for the selected communities follows the Article 11 of the CFM Manual document, in which the target communities participate in the process of surveying, including detailed interventions identified in SFM plans. The contents of the community SFM Plan include but not limited to the following:

• Formulation of a plan for forest protection and a plan for forest fire prevention and fighting
• Formulation of a forest development plan
  
  • Zoning to promote natural regeneration, zoning to promote natural regeneration with additional planting
  • Planting new forests, replanting forests
  • Taking care of and nurturing forests
• Development of a plan on forest exploitation and use
  
  • Bamboo exploitation plan
  • Plan to exploit non-timber forest products
  • Plan to harvest timber from planted forests
• Analysis of costs and net profits.
• A plan for monitoring, monitoring and evaluation
• Solutions to coordinate implementation with related parties
• Integration of issues of gender equality and social inclusion in the development of sustainable forest management plans (in cooperation with the GESI expert) 

5. Conduct village meetings to reach consensus on the SFM Plans of selected communities.

• Discuss on interventions, activities identified in sustainable management plans with local authorities, forest rangers and community members to reach consensus on the final SFM plan of the target communities and submit it to the Commune People's Committee for confirmation
• Facilitate discussions to reach consensus among community members on final SFM plans of the target communities.

Scale and sites for implementation

The consultant team is expected to develop three Sustainable Forest Management Plans for the following 03 selected communities:

• Community in Dinh Huong village, Tam Dinh commune, Tuong Duong district, Nghe An province with an area of ??1,471 hectares
• Community of Dinh Thang village, Tam Dinh commune, Tuosng Duong district, Nghe An province with an area of ??1,153 hectares
• Community of Dong Tien village, Lang Khe commune, Con Cuong district, Nghe An province with area 630 ha.

Anticipated duration, level of effort (LOE), timeline and deliverables

Duration

The estimated time for the team leader to carry out this task is 55 man-days, expected to start in June 2022, and submit the final report on September 15, 2022. Details are in the following table:

LOE

Implementation plan and deliverables

Requirements of deliverables

1. Minutes of the village meeting to agree on the sustainable forest management plan: in Vietnamese, 02 minutes for each village (first and second village meetings).

2. Sustainable Forest Management Plan: in Vietnamese, including 03 Sustainable Forest Management Plans for the three target communities follow the "CFM Manual".

Required qualifications

• Vietnamese nationality only
• A master’s degree or higher, majoring in forest inventory and planning; forest protection or related fields
• Having at least 10 years of experience in the forestry sector, with priority given to sustainable forest management
• Having in-depth knowledge and understanding of community forest management; experience working with the community
• Having a lot of experience and expertise in forest inventory
• Experience and expertise in silviculture
• Have a lot of experience, skills in organizing, assigning and supervising work in the team
• Experience and skills in writing reports in Vietnamese; Able to use English at work
• Priority is given to consultants with experience and understanding of community forests in Nghe An province

RECOFTC’s core values

At RECOFTC, our core values are the foundation of our culture and guide all our work. In addition to job specific skills and experience, the applicant should possess the following characteristics, attitudes and skills:

• Embrace innovation
• Adapt to, and learn from, challenges
• Collaborate with partners and stakeholders
• Nurture commitment, responsibility and ownership
• Prioritize sustainability
• Cultivate participation, social inclusion and gender equity

How to apply

Interested individuals are requested to submit their CV and a cover letter indicating why they are suitable for this consultancy along with the expected fee or daily rate and current contact details of three references, to [email protected]. Please quote the consultancy title in the subject line of the email. Only shortlisted individuals will be notified.

For any further information you may need about the consultancy, please contact [email protected].

Deadline to apply is 5.00 p.m. Hanoi local time, 20 May, 2022.

To learn more about RECOFTC, please visit our website www.recoftc.org