Also in February 2023, Quynh Luu district and Hoang Mai town had 2 cases of illegal logging of pine forests. Regarding the deforestation case in Quynh Luu district, which took place on February 28 and March 2 in the same area of Quynh Chau commune, under the management and protection of the Northern Nghe An Protective Forest Management Board (Nghe An Newspaper reported in the article "The painful case of deforestation and beating people in Quynh Chau" published on March 12, 2023). This case is particularly serious when the area of forest destroyed is up to 2.2 hectares, in addition, the deforester also intentionally seriously injured the forest protection officer in order to disperse the evidence from the scene.
The destroyed forest area belongs to Lot 1, Compartment 3, Sub-area 343B, directly managed and protected by Len Ngoi Forest Protection Station (Northern Nghe An Forest Protection Management Board). This is a forest area planted with two species of pine and acacia trees of the 5 million hectare reforestation project in 2000 (Project 661). According to the description, the forest covered a large hill, but on March 9, only a patch remained on the top. At the foot of the hill, the hill trunk was covered with pine and acacia stumps, scattered with piles of branches, leaves and cut tree trunks. It is easy to see that this is a large-scale deforestation case, involving many people, vehicles and machinery, and the goal is to occupy land for planting acacia. At this time, information from the Quynh Luu - Hoang Mai Forest Protection Department, Quynh Chau commune officials and the Northern Nghe An Forest Protection Management Board said that the incident was discovered on February 28, 2023; On March 2, the subjects returned to continue their deforestation. On March 2, when discovered, the subjects fled, leaving behind their vehicles and chainsaws. On March 6, the subjects mobilized more people to return to dismantle the vehicles, and assaulted a guard of the Northern Nghe An Forest Protection Management Board to the point of hospitalization...
In Hoang Mai town, on February 17, 2023, a case of logging planted forests in Khoanh 6, Sub-area 342 (Quynh Trang commune) for planting acacia was discovered. Initially, the Quynh Luu - Hoang Mai Forest Protection Department and the People's Committee of Quynh Trang commune inspected the scene and discovered 42 scorched pine stumps scattered in an area of 9 hectares of acacia plantation that had been logged, and acacia trees with a height of 30 - 40 cm had been planted on the scene. Later, because there was information that there were many unmeasured pine stumps buried in the ground near this area, on February 27, 2023, the Quynh Luu - Hoang Mai Forest Protection Department and the People's Committee of Quynh Trang commune continued to inspect, verify, and measure an additional 112 pine stumps that had been cut down.
On March 1, the People's Committee of Hoang Mai town and the Quynh Luu - Hoang Mai Forest Protection Department checked the records, measured and re-determined the scene. The result was that the area of the exploitation area was 26.47 hectares, with a total of 198 pine trees with a diameter of 10-45 cm near the base being cut down. Comparing the 2015 forest inventory map approved in Decision No. 1731/QD-UBND dated April 12, 2016 of the Provincial People's Committee, the exploited location was acacia, eucalyptus and DT1 (bare land, shrubs) plantation forest. Previously, the People's Committee of Quynh Luu district assigned the right to manage and use forestry land to Mr. Dau Duc Thanh, residing in Hamlet 3, Quynh Tan commune (in Decision No. 37/QD/UB dated November 11, 1997). The current forest owners include: Dau Duc Truong, Nguyen Canh Thang, Nguyen Dinh Dung, Hoang Van Cam, Ho Sy Manh, Nguyen Thai Lan and Truong Dac Nguyet (with transfer minutes confirmed by the People's Committee of Quynh Tan commune).
Following the above two cases, and gathering information from relevant officials in Quynh Luu district and Hoang Mai town, they all recognized that forest management and protection work is becoming increasingly complicated. As the Head of Quynh Luu - Hoang Mai Forest Protection Department, Mr. Le Ngoc Huu, shared that the main reason for this situation is due to historical shortcomings and inadequacies...
In fact, in the report assessing a number of forestry topics in August 2022, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development clearly recognized the shortcomings and inadequacies as discussed by the Head of the Quynh Luu - Hoang Mai Forest Protection Department. "The situation of arbitrary exploitation of planted forests on the planned area for protective forests planted by people with their own capital has occurred in recent times in some areas such as Quy Hop, Tan Ky, Yen Thanh, especially in Quynh Luu district, Hoang Mai town, under the management of the Northern Nghe An Protective Forest Management Board" - The report of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development raised the issue. And it is recognized that handling this situation is facing many difficulties. The main reason is that legal regulations are unclear, because there are problems in determining forest owners.
The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development classifies each case as follows: Case 1, in the forest areas managed by the forest owner, the forest owner signs a contract to plant, care for, and protect the forest with the people to implement forest planting projects (For example, the JICA 2 Protective Forest Upgrading Project). However, during the implementation process, the people arbitrarily planted additional trees that were not included in the project's tree structure (in Quynh Luu district, people planted acacia trees interspersed with black star trees). When it was time to harvest, the people arbitrarily harvested. The harvesting process did not affect the trees in the project's structure.
Case 2: Some forest land areas were previously allocated by State agencies (Issuance of land use right certificates according to Decree No. 163/1999, Forestry production land allocation, Forest land allocation contracts, Forestry registration books according to Decision No. 184/HD-BT...) to a number of households and individuals (some without original records). People have managed, protected, combined with forest planting and exploitation through many cycles. When the forest management board was established, this area was allocated to the management boards but the land was not recovered and no compensation plan for the people was established. People invested their own capital to plant forests (mainly pure acacia trees), when it was time to exploit, people exploited them on their own.
Case 3: Some areas were reclaimed and used by local people before the establishment of the forest management board (local people did not have legal documents on land use rights), and are now under the management of the forest management boards. Local people had planted forests before, and when it was time to exploit, local people exploited them at their own discretion. The exploitation of planted forests by local people with their own capital on the area of protective forest land was spontaneous, and the exploitation process did not comply with the regulations on the method of exploiting planted protective forests (stipulated in Point c, Clause 3, Article 20, Decree No. 156/2018/ND-CP and related documents), mainly through clear-cutting.
When people illegally exploited, the forest owners discovered the cases, made a record of suspension, and reported and requested competent authorities to handle it. However, due to difficulties in identifying forest owners, there was not enough basis to handle illegal forest exploitation (stipulated in Article 13, Decree No. 35/2019/ND-CP) as well as violations of regulations on exploitation, protection of forests and forest products (Article 232, Penal Code 2015, amended and supplemented in 2017). Sanctioning violations of regulations on records and procedures for exploiting forest products of legal origin could not be implemented because Decree No. 35/2019/ND-CP currently only stipulates sanctions for violations of records and procedures for planted forests whose owners are represented by the State.
An official from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said: “These issues have been discussed at many meetings, but so far, there have been no effective solutions. Therefore, the act of arbitrarily exploiting planted forests by households and individuals in the three groups mentioned above has increased, and there are even signs of illegal encroachment on protective forest land for afforestation.”
In fact, in a number of cases of deforestation; disputes and encroachment on forest land in Quynh Luu district and Hoang Mai town in recent years, the analysis of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and the discussion of the department's officials are close and correct. Because the situation of protective forest land and production forest land overlapping and overlapping with the types of land assigned to people for management and use exists in many localities at the grassroots level. Even in Quynh Chau commune, where the deforestation incident occurred on February 28 and March 2, there was also a situation of overlap and dispute over an area of more than 100 hectares of forestry land. Asked the official of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development: Is it impossible to come up with a solution to this situation? Without answering the question directly, he said: What needs to be done immediately is that the competent authorities need to pay attention to directing the review, statistics, and detailed separation of the entire area of forestry land assigned to forestry units and people...