Con Cuong planted forests to replace slash-and-burn farming
Con Cuong is a district with a very large area of natural forest (133,193 ha), however, due to the practice of slash-and-burn cultivation, this locality loses a significant area of forest every year. The project "Replacing forests to replace slash-and-burn cultivation" in recent years has brought about very positive results, gradually developing the forest area and stabilizing the lives of the people.
(Baonghean) -Con Cuong is a district with a very large area of natural forest (133,193 ha), however, due to the practice of slash-and-burn cultivation, this locality loses a significant area of forest every year. The project "Replacing forests to replace slash-and-burn cultivation" in recent years has brought about very positive results, gradually developing the forest area and stabilizing the lives of the people.
In the 2000s, the entire Con Cuong district had over 2,000 hectares of swidden fields. In 2010, implementing the state's policy of planting protective forests and production forests to replace swidden fields, the entire district still had about 700 hectares of area cultivated by this method, concentrated in four communes: Cam Lam, Chau Khe, Thach Ngan and Binh Chuan.
Implementing the state support mechanism, when stopping slash-and-burn cultivation to switch to afforestation, people in the project area will be provided with food until they have a replacement income. Accordingly, households with many people but participating in the conversion with a small swidden area will receive a subsidy based on the actual swidden area, but not exceeding 700 kg/ha/year; households with few people but participating in the conversion with a large swidden area will receive a subsidy of 10 kg of rice/person/month.
Forest care in Con Cuong.
When implementing the project, Con Cuong encountered very basic difficulties. People are used to farming, not interested in planting forests, while the localities that do farming are all remote communes. Mr. Le Quang Hop - Head of Con Cuong Forest Protection Department said: The farming areas are all very far from the people, just reed land, transportation is very difficult. In many places, you have to climb slopes, wade through streams for a whole day to get there. Meanwhile, planting forests often has to be done in the rainy season, vehicles cannot enter, many times the district has to use excavators to push vehicles carrying seedlings and fertilizers into the project area. At the same time, propaganda and mobilization work has been carried out well to every village and every person. The forest rangers take turns staying in the area, instructing and checking how to dig holes, how to build fences to protect newly planted forests.
Thanks to appropriate measures and local efforts, in 2010, Con Cuong planted 100 hectares to replace the old swidden cultivation area. In 2011 alone, 345 hectares were designed and assessed for planting in the autumn crop, striving to cover the entire swidden cultivation area of the three communes of Cam Lam, Chau Khe and Thach Ngan with acacia trees.
Mr. Hop said: Currently, there is only the swidden area in Binh Chuan commune, because the area is very remote, difficult to travel (from the nearest village to the project area takes 3-4 hours on foot), there are almost no roads. If the project is implemented, when there are products, it will be very difficult to transport. Therefore, it is expected that in 2012, the district will assign the Forest Protection Department to coordinate with the District's Steering Committee for Agricultural and Forestry Production to conduct a survey, find suitable crops, and cover the forest area in this remote and extremely difficult commune.
Phu Huong
