Enhancing the legal framework towards holistic and sustainable wildlife conservation in Vietnam

Biodiversity and wildlife in Vietnam are under increasing pressure from deforestation and illegal wildlife trading.
A large number of wildlife conservation policies and projects are already in place. However, their effectiveness is hampered by unclear and inconsistent policies; weak law enforcement, monitoring and evaluation; insufficient funding; challenges in achieving the dual goal of conservation and development; environmental and social justice issues; and problems addressing the drivers of deforestation and degradation.
Despite the persistence of these challenges, Vietnam has new opportunities to address them by moving away from sectoral silos and promoting One Health and landscape approaches; promoting cross-sectoral and cross-border collaboration in addressing the illegal wildlife trade; adopting timely responses to newly emerging issues such as Covid-19 with mixed policy instruments; embedding wildlife conservation policies in green living and consumption behaviour; and tapping into international, regional and national financial initiatives to close finance gaps.
Sustainable wildlife conservation in Vietnam requires strengthened transboundary and inter-sectoral stakeholder engagement; a holistic and cross-sectoral approach to addressing underlying drivers of deforestation and degradation; sufficient and sustainable funding; and changing consumers’ behaviour in buying and using wildlife products.