In an effort to enhance local livelihoods and promote the sustainable management of forest resources and biodiversity, a strategic collaboration has been established among key stakeholders in Phu Loc District, Hue City. This partnership is grounded in a Memorandum of Understanding and recent stakeholder engagement meetings, involving the NADO Agricultural Medicinal Plant and Service Cooperative (NADO Cooperative), Community Forest Management groups (CFM groups), and the Center for Rural Development in Central Vietnam (CRD).
🔑 Within this cooperation framework, the Center for Rural Development in Central Vietnam (CRD) plays a pivotal role as the technical, legal, and resource mobilization support unit. Specifically, CRD will:
🔸 Provide in-depth technical support to CFM communities throughout the entire process of cultivating, tending, and sustainably harvesting medicinal plants, ensuring compliance with the quality standards set by the NADO Cooperative. This is particularly critical to enable medicinal products to participate in value chains, including potential international supply chains that require strict quality control and adherence to standards.
🔸 Offer legal advisory services to CFM communities, assisting them in negotiating, signing, and implementing contractual agreements for production linkage and product marketing with the NADO Cooperative. CRD will also provide technical assistance to the NADO Cooperative when needed, based on the cooperative’s requirements and CRD’s areas of expertise.
🔸 Identify and connect potential funding sources to support both the CFM communities and the NADO Cooperative, helping to accelerate collaborative activities.
🔸 Promote and support all parties (CFM communities and the NADO Cooperative) in effectively fulfilling their mutual commitments under the partnership.
🔑 The role of the NADO Cooperative is to connect markets and facilitate the sale of products for CFM communities. Its collaborative activities include:
🔹 Supporting CFM communities in developing eco-tourism and experiential tourism models linked to sustainable forest management and biodiversity conservation.
🔹 Supporting and purchasing medicinal plant seedlings produced by the communities; assisting households and communities in planting and cultivating medicinal herbs under the forest canopy and on household land.
🔹 Procuring and marketing raw medicinal materials either cultivated or sustainably harvested by CFM communities.
🔹 Providing training and employing labor from CFM member households in the preliminary processing and value-added production of medicinal herbs at the cooperative.
