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Logging out: Loggers fell forest trees for housing and fuel, as well as to clear farming land, in Krong Pa District in the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai. — VNA/VNS Photo Ngoc Truong

Reforestation an uphill battle in mountainous Tay Nguyen

TAY NGUYEN — The authorities and people in Tay Nguyen (the Central Highlands) have a battle on their hands to protect and restore forests that have been relentlessly chopped down.

Spread over nearly 55,000sq.km, the forests in these regions are the country’s largest. Actually covering 2.93 million ha, it is 230,000ha less than five years ago.

Of the four Tay Nguyen provinces, Dac Lac is the one with the largest wooded area and also the one losing the most canopy each year – an average of 40,000ha.

The reason for losing the provinces’ ‘lungs’ is not hard to find – the inexorable emigration of people to these areas from the rest of the country since 1990. The population growth in these provinces has been a staggering 5 to 6 per cent every year. And Dac Lac alone houses 2,200 migrants.

With the influx came the usual accompanying problems: pressure on forest land for housing, cultivating and fuel.

Another reason has been the increased cultivation of commercial crops like coffee, pepper and rubber. The total area under these has risen to 567,000ha – double the 1996 figure.

But the Government has become aware of the havoc that denudation of the forest cover could wreak.

"Tay Nguyen is seen as a common roof for the central and south-eastern areas, but the region’s forest is enduring serious damage, illegal wood exploitation remains a headache, and the environment is under great threat," said Prime Minister Phan Van Khai when speaking about the region’s development.

He exhorted the Tay Nguyen provinces to keep a close eye on forest protection and development, and set targets for the next five years to increase the area under forest cover in a bid to ensure sustainable socio-economic development.

The provincial authorities too have begun to get their act together. In Dac Lac, for instance, billions of dong have been invested in afforestation activities under programmes 327 and 661 and the total reforested has reached about 10,000ha.

But the figure is still minuscule when juxtaposed with the more than 200,000ha that have been felled since 1995.

Under the socio-economic development scheme for the 2001-05 period, Tay Nguyen’s provinces have earmarked over 2.93 million ha of existing forest areas for protection while reforesting 500,000ha, so that the total forest cover would reach 64.3 per cent by 2005, an increase of 10 per cent over the current figure.

To reach the goal though, the provinces need to raise awareness among the population, innovate sustainable production and manufacturing methods and improve forest management and protection.

The forest plantation and communal forest management departments should be further strengthened while economic sectors and households should be urged to take an active part in protecting and managing forest areas.

At the moment some areas in Dac Lac Province have been moving in that direction and local residents have proven willing to protect and develop forest areas to which they are given possession rights. — VNS

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