Early spring sees bustling reforestation activities in Nghe An.

In the early days of spring, walking along the hillsides of Mau Duc commune, Con Cuong district, one can see the villagers busily planting trees for the spring season. Mr. Lang Van Chin from Ke Sung village, Mau Duc commune, who is planting trees, said: "Throughout the past year, acacia trees have had stable prices, reaching over 1.1 million VND/ton, so we are very happy. After harvesting, our family hired workers to clear the undergrowth and dig holes. After the Lunar New Year, we started hiring laborers to plant 10 hectares of forest for the spring season. We expect to finish planting the entire area of ​​timber trees in about 20 days."

Mr. Vu Dinh Thanh, Chairman of the Mau Duc Commune People's Committee, said: The entire commune has over 3,000 hectares of acacia forest for raw materials. This year, the commune will plant over 350 hectares of new acacia trees. To date, the commune has planted over 120 hectares of forest in the spring. After Tet, from the 5th day onwards, people throughout the commune will continue clearing the undergrowth and planting the remaining 270 hectares of forest.

Ms. Dinh Thi Thuy Anh, Deputy Head of the Agriculture Department of Con Cuong District, said: "In 2025, the province assigned the district to plant 2,000 hectares, however, Con Cuong has consistently exceeded the target (400 hectares) every year. This spring alone, the district is implementing planting on over 1,000 hectares. To date, the district has planted over 300 hectares of spring forest, concentrated in the communes of Don Phuc, Thach Ngan, Bong Khe, Lang Khe, Chau Khe, Chi Khe, etc."

A new development in afforestation is that while previously people mainly planted forests extensively without proper care, now they are focusing on intensive afforestation, digging holes, applying fertilizer, planting high-quality seedlings, and following proper care procedures, resulting in high yields of acacia trees.

However, in the spring reforestation effort, there are still difficulties as most localities in Con Cuong district do not have access roads for planting materials, so people mostly have to use human power to transport planting supplies such as carrying fertilizer and seedlings up the hills to plant acacia trees.

These days, taking advantage of favorable weather, farmers in Anh Son district are actively planting forests for the spring season. Mr. Le Van Tri, Head of the District's Agriculture Department, said: In 2025, the province planned to plant over 1,500 hectares of raw material forests, but Anh Son will plant 1,800 hectares. Currently, the communes implementing spring forest planting include Tho Son, Thanh Son, Binh Son, Hung Son, Duc Son, etc.

According to the Forest Protection Department's report, Nghe An province will plant 20,000 hectares of timber forests in 2025 (an increase of 1,500 hectares compared to the previous year). This spring alone, the province will plant 8,500 hectares (including approximately 1,000 hectares of large timber forests, mainly concentrated in Thanh Chuong, Nghia Dan, and Quy Hop districts). Currently, localities are actively planting spring forests to ensure progress; over 2,000 hectares have already been planted, and the plan is to complete spring forest planting by the end of April 2025.

Currently, the province has 30 licensed seed production and trading units, which have produced over 25 million forestry seedlings of various types for spring reforestation. Among them, Song Hieu Forestry and Agriculture Company Limited has invested in and built 5 acacia seedling nurseries, producing over 5 million high-quality seedlings for large-timber reforestation.

To ensure the quality of seedlings, the Forest Protection Department recommends that localities further strengthen the management of seed production and trading, and advise farmers to buy seedlings with clear origins... At the same time, it directs localities to replant forests immediately after harvesting, avoiding leaving any land fallow, in order to ensure the year's reforestation plan is met. Localities should assign specialized staff to promptly provide technical guidance to farmers on spring reforestation to ensure timely and quality results.

In addition, in 2025, the Forest Protection Department will coordinate with relevant agencies to consolidate, renovate, and upgrade approximately 13 nurseries belonging to state-owned forest management units currently engaged in the production and business of forestry plant seedlings in the province.

Support will be provided to approximately 12 million high-quality tissue-cultured seedlings, along with technical transfer for care and training to serve high-quality reforestation for protection forest management boards, special-use forest management boards, and forestry companies. This will be in the form of post-investment support aimed at improving skills in producing high-quality tissue-cultured seedlings to meet the needs of reforestation in the area.

Forestry in Nghe An province has many favorable opportunities for development due to the increasing demand for processing and producing timber and forest products for domestic consumption and export. Therefore, related sectors also need policies, credit support, infrastructure investment, encouragement and promotion of research and transfer of high-yield plant varieties, and improvement of product quality to meet domestic and export demands, thereby increasing economic value per unit area.