8 – 12/3/2018

The mangrove forest provides many beneficial goods and services but also pose a risk to coastal populations. However, current knowledge of mangrove forests in Thailand and Vietnam remains limited and highly uncertain for sustainable management and future rehabilitation such as species composition, carbon stock, height, density and canopy closure. The project RESCuE will focus on development and evaluation of monitoring and optimizing the design quality of mangrove restoration towards a sustainable coastal ecosystem management in Thailand and Mekong delta of Vietnam.

The first kick-off of the RESCuE project was held in Vietnam between 8-9 March 2018, hosted by the Can Tho university. RESCuE aim 1) to contribute to the mitigation of mangrove forest losses and degradation in Thailand and Vietnam and support the National Master (Action) Plan on Climate Change (2015 – 2050), and 2) To increase the long-term sustainability of current and future rehabilitation efforts on mangrove ecosystems in Thailand and Vietnam with minimal negative impacts of different stakeholders. It will achieve by developing a long-term database on changes in mangrove forest, identify the suitable ways for afforestation with local community’s preferences and behavior for mangrove forest conservation and rehabilitation on selected case study sites in the respective countries.

The purpose of the meeting was firstly allowing the all project consortium members and project principle investigator to get to know each other and establish a lines of communication. Secondly to discussion on proposed work packages (WP) with an emphasis on the exchange of technical expertise, available resources, data and tools between beneficiaries; understanding linkage and dependencies between WP1 to WP4, review the project and WP milestones during project period, implementation of work plan and road map for the project and finally to discuss the monitoring and management of project progress and reporting. The meeting was very fruitful and had a lively atmosphere. The meeting was followed by three days’ field survey (10-12 March, 2018) and there was much detailed discussion of the initial implementation of WP 1 and WP2 in Thailand and WP1 and WP 3 in Vietnam. The development of mangrove ecological monitoring system was the extra activity added to main framework. The rapid mangrove change assessment and forecasting activities were also discussed. Finally, the importance of the knowledge transfer between consortium activities was stressed.