Local Partners

Cambodian Rural Development Team (CRDT)

The Cambodian Rural Development Team (CRDT) formed in 2001 as a student initiatvie at the Maharashi Verdic University to undertake development projects which improve the living standards of subsistence communities in rural Cambodia. The teams’ projects generate environmentally positive sustainable outcomes, when renewable resources and appropriate agricultural technologies are skillfully combined in partnerships with the beneficiaries themselves.

Since 2004, CRDT have been working in collaboration with international and local conservation organisations, as well a wide range of government agencies, to deliver community and rural development to over 1000 families in support of conservation of critically endangered Mekong River Irrawaddy Dolphins in Kratie and Stung Treng and the protection of tropical forest biodiversity in Mondulkiri.

Culture and Environment Preservation Association (CEPA)

Culture and Environment Preservation Association (CEPA) was founded in 1995 by four social and environmental activists committed to preserving their natural resources. Realizing and believing that the issues of natural resource management were first and foremost the most important problems facing the country and were in need of immediate and permanent solution. CEPA joined the Alliance in 2006 and is focusing the cooperation on the Salaphoum work.

Under the Salaphoum initiative local communities are taught how to record their indigenous knowledge through participatory learning approach. Villagers living along the Mekong River within the RAMSAR Site have been able to document information on fisheries and plant resources in their surroundings. The work aims to join management and planning of wetlands resources at community level, and have the villagers priorities included in the commune development plans.

Xuan Thuy National Park (XTNP)

Xuan Thuy National Park (XTNP) in Nam Dinh province south of Hanoi, Vietnam, was the first Ramsar site in Vietnam, established in 1989. It has the largest coastal wetland ecosystem in northern Vietnam with a high level of biodiversity. The population in the five communes surrounding the park is almost 50,000 people.

For the cooperation in the Wetlands Alliance the XTNP Network engages the National park management (which coordinates the network) and local communities in Giao Thien, Giao An, Giao Lac, Giao Xuan, Giao Hai communes, as well as some local government departments (DARD and DoNRE) addressing priority areas of park management, alternative and additional livelihoods, sustainable tourism, solid waste management, etc.