Vietnam High Conservation Value Forest Toolkit - HCV Resource ...

Question
4.2.2: Is the forest located within an
area frequently suffering from
natural calamities/disasters?
4.2.3: Have natural calamities/
disasters occurring in the area been
serious?
Answer Guidance
No Go to 4.2.2.
Yes This is HCV. Information from local
authority’s reports, previous researches, forest
managers and local communities.
No Go to 4.2.3.
Yes
No
The area is HCVF. Information from
Government’s and local authority’s reports,
from consultation with scientists and local
communities.
This element is not present.
In some cases, if information and its sources are not reliable enough to conclude on the
presence of HCV 4.2, the precautionary principle should be employed.
HCV 5: Forest areas fundamental to meeting basic needs of local communities.
Definition
HCV 5 applies only to basic needs. For instance, if a community derives a major share of its
protein from hunting/fishing in a forest area without any alternative source, the forest area
would constitute a HCV. If, in another forest, people hunt largely for recreational purposes
(even if they did eat their catch) and their livelihoods were not dependent upon hunting, then
this would not constitute a HCV.
A forest may have HCV status if local communities obtain essential fuel, food, fodder,
medicines, or building materials from the forest, without readily available alternatives. In such
cases, the High Conservation Value is specifically identified as one or more of these basic
needs.
However, HCVs do not apply to excessive extraction, even when communities are currently
economically dependent on it. Nor do they include the excessive application of traditional
practices, when these are degrading or destroying the forests and the other values present in the
forest.
The following would not be considered HCVs:
• Forests providing resources of minor importance to local communities.
• Forests that provide resources that could readily be obtained elsewhere or that could be
replaced by substitutes.
• Forests that provide resources that are being extracted at unsustainable levels by the
local community.
• Forests that provide resources that can only be obtained in a way that threatens the
maintenance of other HCVs.
HCV5 is determined by actual reliance on the forest of communities (even when this reliance
is only occasional, as in the case of forests providing food in times of famine).
In Viet Nam, communities living in and around forest areas have a varying degree of
dependency on forest resources depending on their origin, their history, the influence of
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