Investing nearly 87 billion VND to preserve elephant herds in Nghe An
(Baonghean.vn) - On January 4, in Vinh city, the General Department of Forestry coordinated with the People's Committee of Nghe An province to organize a Steering Committee Conference on the Emergency Action Plan to 2020 to conserve elephants in Vietnam.
According to the report of the General Department of Forestry (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development), after 3 years of implementing the project "Urgent elephant conservation and capacity building for ivory trade control in Vietnam by 2020", significant results have been achieved. First, the location of elephant distribution across the country has been identified and delimited; support and investigation have been provided to establish the Elephant Conservation and Habitat Area in Quang Nam province.
 Comrades Cao Chi Cong - Deputy Director of the General Department of Forestry, Head of the Steering Committee; Dinh Viet Hong - Member of the Provincial Party Committee, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Nghe An province co-chaired the conference. Attending the conference were members of the Steering Committee, representatives of relevant departments, agencies and delegates from Dak Lak and Dong Nai provinces.Photo: Cong Kien |
Raising awareness of the community in areas where wild elephants are distributed about elephant conservation awareness and skills to prevent conflicts between elephants and humans. At the same time, improving the capacity to investigate and monitor wild elephant populations; attracting the attention of international organizations and forming a database on wild and domesticated elephants to enhance management and monitoring capacity...
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| Comrade Dinh Viet Hong - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, gave an overview of the implementation of elephant conservation work in the area. Photo: Cong Kien |
In Nghe An, there are currently 13-15 Asian elephants, distributed in the buffer zone and core zone of Pu Mat National Park and 2 individuals distributed in Quy Hop and Tuong Duong districts. The Nghe An Provincial Elephant Conservation Emergency Project was approved by the Provincial People's Committee on October 13, 2013 with the goal of preventing the decline in numbers, preserving and developing elephant herds, and maintaining the long-term life of individual elephants.
Planning, improving and protecting the habitats of elephant herds; improving the capacity of biodiversity management, conservation and monitoring; minimizing and eventually ending conflicts between elephants and humans; enhancing cross-border cooperation in elephant and wildlife conservation between Nghe An and Bolikhamxay province (Lao PDR).
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| A herd of elephants destroys crops of people in Cao Veu village, Phuc Son commune (Anh Son). Photo: Archive |
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| Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Xuan Dang discusses some solutions to limit conflicts between elephants and humans in the world. Photo: Cong Kien |
The total cost of the project is nearly 87 billion VND (of which the central budget is nearly 70 billion VND, the local budget is more than 17 billion VND). Of which, 32 billion VND is invested in auxiliary works to separate and protect elephants, the rest is for the program of investigation, research, monitoring, compensation for damages, restoration of habitat areas...
On that basis, the Management Board of the Elephant Conservation Project in Nghe An province proposed to accelerate the disbursement of career capital to continue implementing project items; consider the plan to move two individual elephants in Bac Son commune (Quy Hop) and Chau Khe (Con Cuong) to the Elephant Conservation Center in Dak Lak province...
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| Comrade Cao Chi Cong - Deputy Director of the General Department of Forestry, Head of the Steering Committee highly appreciated the efforts of the project management boards. Photo: Cong Kien |
At the conference, delegates and scientists discussed measures to limit conflicts between elephants and humans, solutions to elephant conservation; allocation of funding sources; assessment of results, problems, causes, challenges and proposed solutions.
On behalf of the Steering Committee of the Emergency Action Plan to 2020 for Elephant Conservation in Vietnam, Comrade Cao Chi Cong highly appreciated the efforts of the project management boards in implementing the tasks, the close direction of the authorities at all levels and achieved certain results. However, the funding source has not been fully disbursed for construction of items, there are still conflicts between elephants and humans, conservation solutions are not sustainable, and it is necessary to study and adjust the funding source.
Regarding the implementation of the 2018 plan, the Head of the Steering Committee requested to promptly remove obstacles in funding for project implementation, focus funds on conflict prevention and sustainable conservation; urgently implement the remaining items of the project; localities promptly allocate funds for the project; establish a 5-year review plan to specify the project implementation progress.
