In Viet Nam, Protecting Nature Becomes Good Business
An Illustration of the IPBES Business and Biodiversity Assessment
in Practice, through Payments for Wetland and Marine Ecosystem Services
In Viet Nam, Protecting Nature Becomes Good Business
An Illustration of the IPBES Business and Biodiversity Assessment
in Practice, through Payments for Wetland and Marine Ecosystem Services
For a decade, the skies over Tram Chim National Park in Viet Nam’s Dong Thap Province grew quieter each spring.
They had historically been filled with Sarus cranes, Ibises and spoonbills, who would come to feed on the water chestnuts. But fewer of them started returning as changes in the wetland’s natural flood cycle, driven by water management, intensive agriculture and climate change, degraded their feeding habitats.
The people living around Tram Chim and the wetlands depend on each other. The national park sustains local livelihoods, including tourism-related businesses, and those livelihoods draw directly on the wealth of species and landscapes that visitors come to enjoy. With the balance disrupted, restoring it became a priority for the park’s management and its partners.
Through a pioneering arrangement between the business that relies on the wetlands and the local authorities, it was agreed that a portion of the revenues generated by businesses that depend on the park would be reinvested into the park, so that companies drawing on its ecosystem services could help fund Tram Chim’s restoration, making its recovery and conservation sustainable.
According to the IPBES Business and Biodiversity Assessment released in February 2026, all businesses have a responsibility to address their impacts and dependencies on nature.
Government policies have an important role to play in creating frameworks, standards, guidelines and incentives to enable the private sector to fulfil this responsibility. By investing in biodiversity, businesses can help mitigate nature-related risks to their supply chains and operations and unlock opportunities that deliver positive outcomes for both business and biodiversity. This is where the public sector can take the lead, shaping an environment that makes it easier for businesses to invest in nature – an environment where policy recognizes the value of the ecosystem services biodiversity provides while also crediting the local land stewards who maintain them.
Through a pioneering arrangement between the business that relies on the wetlands and the local authorities, it was agreed that a portion of the revenues generated by businesses that depend on the park would be reinvested into the park, so that companies drawing on its ecosystem services could help fund Tram Chim’s restoration, making its recovery and conservation sustainable.
According to the IPBES Business and Biodiversity Assessment released in February 2026, all businesses have a responsibility to address their impacts and dependencies on nature.
Government policies have an important role to play in creating frameworks, standards, guidelines and incentives to enable the private sector to fulfil this responsibility. By investing in biodiversity, businesses can help mitigate nature-related risks to their supply chains and operations and unlock opportunities that deliver positive outcomes for both business and biodiversity. This is where the public sector can take the lead, shaping an environment that makes it easier for businesses to invest in nature – an environment where policy recognizes the value of the ecosystem services biodiversity provides while also crediting the local land stewards who maintain them.
UNDP’s Nature Pledge places nature at the heart of development, recognizing that it is intertwined, interconnected and indispensable to human life on Earth, and that if our societies and economies depend on healthy and functioning natural ecosystems, then we must design economies that give back to these ecosystems and ensure that they thrive.
To this end, BES-Net worked with public and private stakeholders in Viet Nam to expand and replicate ecosystem service-based payment schemes that compensate local stewards of biodiversity for their role in maintaining the ecosystem services provided by their lands – also known as Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES). This work began with the national ecosystem assessment (NEA) launched in 2022, which provided a national baseline for the state of the country’s ecosystems and identified where more targeted, local action was needed.
What came next was the question of turning NEA findings and recommendations into action and results on the ground, which was the purpose of the catalytic seed funds provided by the BES Solution Fund, in particular through the development of the pilot Payments for Wetland Ecosystem Services (PWES) scheme in Tram Chim National Park. The BES Solution Fund ran from 2022 to 2025, implemented by UNDP Viet Nam with the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Agency, under the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, the Tram Chim National Park Management Board and the Institute of Strategy and Policy on Agriculture and Environment, along with relevant partners.
Viet Nam had already demonstrated that ecosystem service payments could operate at scale through its national Payment for Forest Environmental Services mechanism since 2011. From 2011 to 2020, the mechanism mobilized more than VND 16.746 trillion (approximately US$650 million), supporting 215 forest management boards, 88 forestry companies, 8,067 community forest owners, 1,432 commune-level authorities and other forest-managing organizations, as well as 540,000 households, individual forest owners, contracted forest-protection households and other households benefiting through communities and communes.
Building on this experience, the 2020 Law on Environmental Protection and its implementing Decree No. 08/2022/NĐ-CP established a legal framework for payments for natural ecosystem services beyond forests, including services provided by marine and wetland ecosystems. This created an enabling policy basis for local authorities, ecosystem managers and other stakeholders to pilot and expand locally appropriate PES mechanisms that can mobilize additional resources for conservation and sustainable ecosystem management.
Sarus cranes flying in the sky near Tram Chim National Park. Credit: UNDP Viet Nam
Sarus cranes flying in the sky near Tram Chim National Park. Credit: UNDP Viet Nam
Tram Chim National Park. Credit: UNDP Viet Nam
Tram Chim National Park. Credit: UNDP Viet Nam
UNDP’s Nature Pledge places nature at the heart of development, recognizing that it is intertwined, interconnected and indispensable to human life on Earth, and that if our societies and economies depend on healthy and functioning natural ecosystems, then we must design economies that give back to these ecosystems and ensure that they thrive.
To this end, BES-Net worked with public and private stakeholders in Viet Nam to expand and replicate ecosystem service-based payment schemes that compensate local stewards of biodiversity for their role in maintaining the ecosystem services provided by their lands – also known as Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES). This work began with the national ecosystem assessment (NEA) launched in 2022, which provided a national baseline for the state of the country’s ecosystems and identified where more targeted, local action was needed.
What came next was the question of turning NEA findings and recommendations into action and results on the ground, which was the purpose of the catalytic seed funds provided by the BES Solution Fund, in particular through the development of the pilot Payments for Wetland Ecosystem Services (PWES) scheme in Tram Chim National Park. The BES Solution Fund ran from 2022 to 2025, implemented by UNDP Viet Nam with the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Agency, under the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, the Tram Chim National Park Management Board and the Institute of Strategy and Policy on Agriculture and Environment, along with relevant partners.
Viet Nam had already demonstrated that ecosystem service payments could operate at scale through its national Payment for Forest Environmental Services mechanism since 2011. From 2011 to 2020, the mechanism mobilized more than VND 16.746 trillion (approximately US$650 million), supporting 215 forest management boards, 88 forestry companies, 8,067 community forest owners, 1,432 commune-level authorities and other forest-managing organizations, as well as 540,000 households, individual forest owners, contracted forest-protection households and other households benefiting through communities and communes.
Building on this experience, the 2020 Law on Environmental Protection and its implementing Decree No. 08/2022/NĐ-CP established a legal framework for payments for natural ecosystem services beyond forests, including services provided by marine and wetland ecosystems. This created an enabling policy basis for local authorities, ecosystem managers and other stakeholders to pilot and expand locally appropriate PES mechanisms that can mobilize additional resources for conservation and sustainable ecosystem management.
What this has meant in practice is that businesses benefitting financially from the ecosystem services of Tram Chim, including through tourism and recreation, are required to pay into the programme, so that “those whose economic activities derive values from the environment may compensate those who protect and conserve it,” said Nguyen Dinh Tho, Deputy Director at the Institute of Strategy and Policy on Agriculture and Environment, a key partner in the development of the PWES scheme.
“So that ‘those whose economic activities derive values from the environment may compensate those who protect and conserve it.’”
Building on BES-Net's technical foundations
Taking stock of the technical groundwork and institutional lessons of PWES in Tram Chim National Park, UNDP’s Biodiversity Finance Initiative (BIOFIN) in Viet Nam is experimenting with a marine PES programme in the Cu Lao Cham Nature Reserve – Da Nang. This is expected to become one of Viet Nam’s first site-level marine ecosystem-service payment schemes focused on tourism and recreation.
As the costs of managing the nature reserve were largely borne by the public budgets, while the benefits of that management were realized across the reserve-affiliated commercial value chain, a mechanism was needed that would allow the businesses profiting from the reserve to contribute to its upkeep. The proposed payment of 1 percent of revenue, from potential payer groups including travel service providers, diving operators and transport providers, is consistent with the precedent of tourism-related payments under the PFES mechanism.
Under the proposed scheme, a portion of the revenue would be retained to operate and administer the PES scheme, while the majority would be allocated to marine ecosystem conservation, restoration and community development. Potential activities include marine conservation communication, patrolling and monitoring, coral and seagrass restoration, coastal habitat recovery, livelihood support, capacity-building and incentives for greener tourism practices.
The institutional learning that occurred in the process of implementing Phase II of the BES Solution Fund in Viet Nam also contributed to the project design in Cu Lao Cham. For example, one lesson learned is that institutional responsibilities need to be clarified from the outset. The management boards of a protected area best serve as site-level focal points in PES schemes, while provincial departments should lead formal submission, policy coordination and the approval process.
Tram Chim National Park. Credit: UNDP Viet Nam
Tram Chim National Park. Credit: UNDP Viet Nam
“The work strengthened national and local expertise in ecosystem valuation, service identification, payer mapping, benefit-sharing and the design of non-forest PES mechanisms. These capacities are essential because marine and wetland PES remain technically and institutionally new in Viet Nam.”
“BES-Net helped establish the technical foundation for developing PES beyond the forestry sector, including guidance on marine and wetland PES and a draft site-level scheme for Tram Chim. These outputs informed BIOFIN’s research and conceptualization of the marine PES scheme for Cu Lao Cham while also strengthening national expertise in designing and operationalizing novel PES pilots for marine and wetland ecosystems,” said Hoang Thu Thuy, Natural Resources and Biodiversity Programme Analyst with UNDP Viet Nam.
Going beyond UNDP, the technical and institutional knowledge generated through these experiences can be applied to other schemes and other protected areas across Viet Nam, building capacities at local and national levels. According to Thuy, “the work strengthened national and local expertise in ecosystem valuation, service identification, payer mapping, benefit-sharing and the design of non-forest PES mechanisms. These capacities are essential because marine and wetland PES remain technically and institutionally new in Viet Nam.”
“BES-Net helped establish the technical foundation for developing PES beyond the forestry sector, including guidance on marine and wetland PES and a draft site-level scheme for Tram Chim. These outputs informed BIOFIN’s research and conceptualization of the marine PES scheme for Cu Lao Cham while also strengthening national expertise in designing and operationalizing novel PES pilots for marine and wetland ecosystems,” said Hoang Thu Thuy, Natural Resources and Biodiversity Programme Analyst with UNDP Viet Nam.
“The work strengthened national and local expertise in ecosystem valuation, service identification, payer mapping, benefit-sharing and the design of non-forest PES mechanisms. These capacities are essential because marine and wetland PES remain technically and institutionally new in Viet Nam.”
Going beyond UNDP, the technical and institutional knowledge generated through these experiences can be applied to other schemes and other protected areas across Viet Nam, building capacities at local and national levels. According to Thuy, “the work strengthened national and local expertise in ecosystem valuation, service identification, payer mapping, benefit-sharing and the design of non-forest PES mechanisms. These capacities are essential because marine and wetland PES remain technically and institutionally new in Viet Nam.”
Conceived through BES-Net and carried forward by BIOFIN, Viet Nam’s Tram Chim draft scheme and the Cu Lao Cham proposed Payment for Marine Ecosystem Services scheme illustrate how Viet Nam is translating its expanded national policy framework for ecosystem service payments into workable, site-level models. This shift is indicative of how conservation and development do not have to be at odds, and the nexus between policy and practice can harmonize both priorities.
Places like Tram Chim and Cu Lao Cham provide a great deal of ecosystem services behind the scenes for the benefit of nature, communities and businesses, whether through holding back flood waters, storing carbon, nurturing fisheries or giving tourists a reason to visit. However, the bill for their conservation is often paid by the State, while earnings are spread across local businesses. What Tram Chim and Cu Lao Cham show is that this gap can be narrowed site by site, using legal tools Viet Nam already has in place, and a solution that works in a Mekong Delta wetland can travel all the way to a marine reserve on the central coast.
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