Failure to achieve national forest cover target

Youth Union members plant forests in the Can Gio protective forest area, Ho Chi Minh City. (Illustration photo)

This information was given at the conference to review 5 years of implementing the forest protection and development plan (2011-2015) organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on December 9, in Hanoi.

Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai said that although forest coverage did not meet the plan, afforestation results were uneven among localities, and reforestation work had not achieved the set goals, the forestry sector had changed the awareness of the whole society in protecting and developing forests, and that when forests are taken, they must be replanted.

Faced with the situation where the Central Highlands region has seen a decrease of about 300,000 hectares of forest area, Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai said that this shows that the work of forest inventory and measurement has been greatly flawed due to manual management. In 2016, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development must complete the digital inventory work.

"If we do not review planning and complete forest inventory, if the data is not accurate, we will not be able to find the right solutions," Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai emphasized.

According to Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai, although there are still forestry production models that achieve 30-40 million VND/ha, even hundreds of millions of VND/ha, these are still individual models, and in many places people still cannot make a living from forestry. In addition to replicating good production models, the industry needs to call on businesses and society to pay more attention and invest in forestry.

“There is still room for businesses to invest in forestry. When businesses come in, they will have a market mindset, capital, and cooperation with the people,” Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai pointed out.

After more than 5 years of implementing the Forest Protection and Development Plan for the 2011-2020 period, the forestry sector has had an average annual production value growth rate that has increased approximately 2 times compared to the 2006-2010 period, reaching an average of 5.95%/year, compared to 3.1%/year in the 2006-2010 period. The export value of wooden furniture and non-timber forest products has increased approximately 1.5 times, estimated at about 6.8-7.0 billion USD in 2015.

According to Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Ha Cong Tuan, the reason is that the results of the forest investigation and inventory in 5 Central Highlands provinces and some localities are different from the reported data in 2013 when the total forest area decreased by 157,949 hectares, equivalent to about 0.53% of the national forest cover.

Deputy Minister Ha Cong Tuan assessed that the quality of forests and biodiversity of natural forests are still declining in some localities. The average timber yield of planted forests is 70-80 m3/ha/harvest cycle (4-6 years), the income value per hectare of planted forest is low, averaging only about 7-8 million VND/ha/year. Therefore, the living standards of people working in forestry are still low, the proportion of income from forestry accounts for only 25% of the total income of farmers.

In the period of 2016-2020, the forestry sector aims to improve productivity, quality and promote the value of each type of forest per unit area; strongly transform the growth model of the sector towards improving efficiency and competitiveness; gradually meet the demand for raw wood for the wood processing industry, paper and artificial board production, meet the demand for wood, firewood and specialty forest products for domestic consumption and export.

The average growth rate of forestry production value is 7%/year; the export turnover of wooden furniture and forestry products is about 9.5 billion USD in 2020.

The sector aims to protect and sustainably develop 100% of existing and newly created forest areas. By 2020, the forest area will reach about 14.87 million hectares, fundamentally reducing violations of laws on forest protection and development; effectively promoting the protective functions, protecting the ecological environment and biodiversity of forests.

The target is to reduce the damaged forest area and the number of violations of the law on forest protection and development by 30-35% on average in the 2016-2020 period compared to the 2011-2015 period; increase forest cover to 42-43% by 2020, contributing to meeting the requirements of natural disaster mitigation, ecological environment protection, and effective response to climate change.

According to Vietnamplus