Forest Landscape Restoration in the Mekong River Basin

   Organised by NationalUniversity ofLaos (NUOL), in cooperation with VITRI (University of Helsinki) and Kasetsart University

                                            (Under the framework of the FORMEB project of the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs 2009-2010)

1. Rationale

The FORMEB project is implemented in 2009 by

1. Organising an intensive training course in Laos for forestry academics and professionals (especially trainers) in the field of forest land-scape restorationand
2. By strengthening the institutional capacity-building at NUOL in the form of curriculum development. The general aim is to build institutional capacity in Laos and thereby in the whole Mekong region in the field of sustainable natural resource management.

As part of the FORMEB project, a maximum of 15 course participants are invited from the University of Helsinki, so as to enhance the educational interaction with trainees in Laos and to contribute to institutional strengthening and capacity building atNUOL.

2. Background

Countries in the Mekong region represent vastly different situations as related to forests and their conservation and management. Forest policies as well as forest management and ownership models in the countries are different. The roles of natural forests and forest plantations are also emphasised in different ways in these countries.

The Government of Lao PDR currently puts an emphasis on developing sectors such as energy (including bioenergy), hydropower, mining and tourism. Accordantly, forestry academic education lacks to a large extent foreign cooperation and is quite much competing with environmental sciences for financing, which currently has been more popular as a recipient of foreign cooperation.

The academic forestry education at the National University of Laos (NUOL) is still very young and there is a need for trained academic staff in forestry. There is a vital need to strengthen both the M.Sc. and Ph.D. curriculum development in forestry at NUOL. Additionally, there is a need to strengthen also the administrative personnel training for their respective duties at the university.

3. The objective of the cooperation

The overall objective of the proposed project strengthening of the National University of Laos, Faculty of Forestry's educational performance and enabling it to provide good professionals for improved management and sustainable use of Lao PDR's forest resources.

The project purpose is strengthening of the Faculty of Forestry in terms of international collaboration; organize joint teaching material production and education events, curriculum development, introduction of new teaching methods, and joint supervision of M.Sc. students research with the aim to provide good forestry professionals and academics for the forest sector of Lao PDR.

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