Biodiversity-based products for livelihoods improvement

The project Biodiversity-based Products (BBP) as a Financing Source for Environment Protection and Livelihood Development is implemented by GFA on behalf of GIZ and in cooperation with the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) in Los Banos, Philippines. Until February 2019, ASEAN Heritage Parks (AHP) and a National Protected Areas (NPA) in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam are to become an economic source for the improvement of livelihoods and biodiversity protection.

The project constitutes one of three modules of the German – ACB cooperation program Protection of Biological Diversity in the ASEAN Member States.

The GIZ ValueLinks methodology on promoting pro-poor green value chains (VC) is utilized in cooperation with other biodiversity-related projects around the world to develop a ValueLinks module specific to BBP. Within the first ten months, the project has selected four pilot sites in Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia in cooperation with the respective national ministries. Four VC analyses conducted at pilot sites by local value chain experts resulted in a pre-selection of eleven potential BBP value chains.

 

An inception workshop, hosted by the Lao government, was jointly conducted by GIZ, GFA and ACB and the concerned ASEAN member states (AMS) of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, was held in late November 2015. During the workshop, 45 key stakeholders from the four countries identified a short-list of BBP VCs to be supported by the BBP project. They drafted detailed strategic activity and finance plans (SAFP) regarding the development and promotion of eight BBP value chains in the buffer zones of the four pilot sites for 2016 to 2019. The workshop was also combined with a ValueLinks for Biodiversity training. The SAFPs will serve as foundation for the implementation of VC development activities at the BBP pilot sites in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Activities are intended to start in June 2016.

 

VCs supported in close cooperation with local NGOs, park management and private sector will be medicinal herbs and medicinal vegetables for consumption and spa products (e.g. Giao Co Lam, Zingiberaceae/ginger, Bo Khai, bamboo, honey).

More information about the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity and, temporarily, all BBP project products can be retrieved at www.aseanbiodiversity.org