Vulnerability assessment of protected area to forest landscape restoration and climate change mitigation: A case study from Vietnam

Abstract

Vietnam has been committed to reduce Green House Gas (GHG) emissions and to Reduction of Deforestationand forest Degradation (REDD). Nature reserve areas are effectively managed and protected contributingto reduce emissions. The vulnerability assessment is a necessary step to reflect the exposure, sensitivity andadaptive from flora in Than Sa – Phuong Hoang nature reserve that significantly contributes to decision-makingprocesses of the sustainable forest management (SFM). The result showed thatillegal logging activitywas the main reason accounted for 74% of all reasons caused the exposure. E. tonkinense species was themost sensitive species of flora, followed by F. brillettii, M. pasquieri, C. balansaeand P. eriifolius, and leastsensitivity species belonged to F.recisa species. The highest criterion adaptive capacity was poverty rateamong sub-region in the study area. Weighting all criteria in vulnerability assessment were assessed basedon the Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach and meet the consistency, areas of highest vulnerabilityaccounted for 3.4% of the total study area, high vulnerability accounted for 21.5% of the total area. Vulnerableareas were identified to provide a helpful evidence for the managers and staff of the nature reserve to makedecision, set up activities in response to minimize impacts of negative effects and make plan scenarios formore effective management of forests and biodiversity. A combination between Geographical InformationSystem (GIS) and AHP can perform spatial distribution vulnerability levels and be transferred and appliedto other areas, however criteria applying has to be adapted to the circumstances in each new region.