Charting a path for carbon credits from household plantation forests

At a workshop held on the morning of May 26 under the theme "Developing Forest Carbon Credits From Household-Scale Plantation Forests in Vietnam: Opportunities, Challenges and Technical Solutions," regulators, scientists, specialists, and forest owners gathered to discuss practical models suited to local conditions.

Nguyen Quang Vinh, Deputy Director of the Lao Cai Department of Agriculture and Environment, outlined the province's considerable natural assets: more than 860,000 hectares of forested land, including over 460,000 hectares of natural forest and nearly 400,000 hectares of plantation forest, with canopy coverage exceeding 61 percent.

"These figures show the substantial room Lao Cai has to participate in the forest carbon credit market," he said. If developed systematically, he added, carbon credits could raise the economic value of forests, generate additional household income, promote sustainable forest management, and contribute to national greenhouse gas reduction targets.

At the same time, the deputy director acknowledged the formidable obstacles facing small-scale household forest owners. Individual landholdings are fragmented and often small. Land records in some areas remain incomplete. Meanwhile, the measurement, reporting, and verification of carbon sequestration requires specialized technical capacity and significant financial outlay.

Dr. Vu Tan Phuong, Director of the Sustainable Forest Management Certification Office at the Vietnam Academy of Forest Sciences, cautioned that carbon credit development is a far more complex undertaking than simply planting trees and selling credits.

Projects must pass through multiple stages, data compilation, carbon sequestration calculation, field measurement, monitoring, reporting, and independent verification, before any credits are issued. The project documentation phase alone can take between six and twelve months, and the costs of hiring consultants and conducting carbon monitoring and verification are substantial. Given the small scale of household plots and their limited resources, individual farmers are unlikely to be able to manage the full process on their own.

Although Decree 180/2026/ND-CP permits households, individuals, and community groups to participate in forest carbon projects, experts at the workshop agreed that without linkages to cooperatives, enterprises, or intermediary organizations, most small landholders would be unable to proceed independently. Dr. Vu Tan Phuong proposed organizing plantation households into cooperatives, farmer groups, or anchor enterprises large enough to consolidate a viable supply area and share the technical costs, data infrastructure, and verification processes.

The rewards for clearing those procedural hurdles, however, are meaningful. Dr. Hoang Lien Son, Director of the Forest Economics Research Center at the Vietnam Academy of Forest Sciences, reported that pilot research conducted under the FCBMO Project in Lao Cai found that participating households could earn an additional 1.6 to 2.5 million VND per hectare annually from the value of forest carbon credits.

Central to that pilot is iTwood, described by participants as the digital technology core supporting household-scale plantation carbon credit development. The platform manages forest data digitally, tracking plot areas, plantation identification codes, tree growth, and carbon absorption in real time. Rather than relying on manual record-keeping, all information concerning individual plots, forest owners, and biomass changes is digitized on the system, creating a verifiable foundation for carbon measurement and credit certification.

Each participating household is assigned a personal management account and a unique identification code for their forest area, allowing the system to record precisely who owns which land, what species are planted, and what the harvest cycle entails.

Under the FCBMO Project, 5,488 plantation identification codes covering approximately 4,850 hectares have been registered, with 3,450 iTwood accounts created for households to manage their forest assets. Beyond its economic function, the platform also helps farmers demonstrate product traceability and access legal timber supply chains, storing the complete record of planting, cultivation, and harvesting activities.

"This is also an important condition for meeting international requirements such as the EU Deforestation Regulation and standards related to emissions reduction and green development," Dr. Hoang Lien Son stressed.

The workshop comes as the Vietnamese government has moved rapidly to build out the legal architecture for its carbon market. Decree 29/2026/ND-CP requires that carbon credits be centrally registered on the National Registry System before any transaction can take place. Decree 112/2026/ND-CP, which entered into force on May 19, establishes the legal basis for international transfers of emissions reduction outcomes and carbon credits. Most recently, Decree 180/2026/ND-CP, issued on May 21, sets out regulations governing carbon sequestration and storage services provided by forests.