Need to clearly orient plants in protective forests and special-use forests instead

Comrade Le Hong Vinh - Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Chairman of the Provincial Party Inspection Committee, Head of the Economic - Budget Committee of the Provincial People's Council, Head of the supervision delegation. Photo: Mai Hoa

According to the Yen Thanh District Forest Protection Management Board, the unit is assigned to manage more than 5,900 hectares of protective forests and special-use forests in 20 communes and is assigned to each household to increase the effectiveness of forest protection and fire prevention.

In addition, the unit was also allocated funds to plant replacement forests from the Forest Protection and Development Fund and has planted 275 hectares of replacement forests for the area of ​​protection forests and special-use forests that have been converted for other purposes, with an implementation budget of nearly 4.2 billion VND from 2015 to present.

Some areas of protective forests and special-use forests have not met their targets due to acacia plantations. Photo: Mai Hoa

Based on the report of the Management Board of each protection area and the inspection of a number of replacement forest planting sites in the special-use forest of Xuan Thanh commune, the issue that most concerned the members of the monitoring team was that the replacement forest planting must ensure the purpose of protection and special-use forests, meaning that long-term trees must be planted; however, currently in some areas, the main trees are acacia trees and when harvesting, the replacement forest area is not guaranteed.

On the other hand, the replacement forest area must be planted in protective forests and special-use forests, but currently there are still some areas planted in production forests.

Chairman of Yen Thanh District People's Committee Phan Van Tuyen admitted some shortcomings in forest management, protection and development in the area. Photo: Mai Hoa

Acknowledging the above-mentioned shortcomings, Chairman of Yen Thanh District People's Committee Phan Van Tuyen said that, in addition to the partial responsibility of the district government, the main responsibility of specialized agencies is not to guide and coordinate with localities to determine that native plants such as lim, sen, tau... must be the main crops, while economic trees such as acacia are only used as intercropping for protective forests and special-use forests.

The Chairman of the People's Committee of Yen Thanh district also admitted that due to the limitations in the management of forest land in the past, some areas of protective forests and special-use forests were converted and granted land use rights to production forests for the people. From this situation, the Chairman of the People's Committee of Yen Thanh district proposed that the Provincial People's Committee should have a direction to synchronously handle this issue.

The working delegation of the Provincial People's Council conducted a field survey at the protective forest of Xuan Thanh commune. Photo: Mai Hoa

Concluding the meeting, Head of the Economic - Budget Committee of the Provincial People's Council Le Hong Vinh pointed out a number of limitations and inadequacies in forest management and the unclear effectiveness of investment in replacement forest planting.

The Head of the Economic - Budget Committee of the Provincial People's Council also requested the Yen Thanh District Protective Forest Management Board to closely coordinate with local authorities to strengthen management and strictly protect protective forest and special-use forest areas, and at the same time propagate and mobilize people to plant replacement forests to ensure protection goals, focusing on research to bring native trees as the main crops in replacement forest areas.

The District Forest Protection Management Board also needs to pay attention to effective forest fire prevention measures, because the current forest access road is too narrow; at the same time, manage, allocate and accept payment funds from the Forest Protection and Development Fund in accordance with regulations, promoting the effective use of the fund.