Organization: IUCN-US and IUCN

Donor: The Coca-Cola Foundation (TCCF)

Project duration: January 2025 – December 2026 (24 months)

Total budget: US$ 276,020 (24 months)

Goal:

The goal of the project is to promote flood-based livelihoods using lotus cultivation to support flood retention areas and restore the lost flood water in the Mekong Delta. The project will develop lotus silk making as a sustainable occupation for local people based on flood-based livelihood models.

Objectives:

1. Provide farmers with technical support/training to produce flood-based livelihood designs for lotus cultivation to increase flood retention areas and provide them with implementation plans and strategies to manage drought and floods.
2. Build a sustainable supply chain to produce products made from lotus silk by supporting livelihoods and improving economic conditions for lotus farmers and craftsmen in traditional weaving villages.

Following the completion of the first year, the second and third years are designed to support the local farmers in implementing lotus cultivation as flood-based agriculture in three upper provinces of the Mekong Delta. The expansion of lotus-based models in these provinces will simultaneously encourage farmers to conserve and increase flood retention areas to restore wetlands ecosystems while creating a sustainable supply chain for lotus silk production. The project aims to support local women’s groups to produce marketable products. In addition, the results are proposed to be scaled up across the upper delta by integrating the project approach into new provincial land and water use plans, in particular, a World Bank-funded Mekong Delta Climate Resilience and Integrated Transformation (MERIT) project which is a $25 million Green Climate Fund (GCF) project and a Wetland-based Adaptation in South and Southeast Asia (WASSA) project which is $136 million GCF project.

Based on the results of Year 1, in Years 2 and 3, the project will continue to focus on (1) building up the areas of lotus cultivation to create a stable supply of lotus fiber for lotus silk products; (2) providing training for local farmers on lotus fiber extraction and weaving; (3) conducting research on aquatic biodiversity and carbon sequestration and (4) connecting with local businesses to support the lotus silk products design, find the markets for local consumption and export.

The major outputs of Years2 and 3 include:

• At least 240 hectares of lotus cultivation set up;
• At least 6 training on lotus fiber extraction and 2 training on lotus fiber weaving conducted;
• Research conducted and synthesized data on aquatic biodiversity and carbon sequestration in relation

to lotus cultivation;

• At least 6 businesses are engaged to support the product design and market.