At the conference to review 5 years of implementing Directive No. 13/CT/TW dated January 12, 2017 of the Secretariat on strengthening the Party's leadership in forest management, protection and development (March 15), Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Ky Son district Tho Ba Re was invited to give a report. Listening to his report on "The impacts of Directive No. 13-CT/TW dated January 12, 2017 of the Secretariat on the lives, economy and society of local people", through the unique and unmistakable voice of the Mong people, everyone assessed it as genuine, high-quality...
According to Mr. Re, after 5 years of implementing Directive 13-CT/TW (2017 - 2022), the work of forest management, protection and development of the entire political system of the border district 30a Ky Son has had positive changes in both awareness and action. Previously, forest management and protection was mainly left to the Forest Rangers and forest owners. But now, this work has been strongly and synchronously participated in by Party committees, People's Committees at all levels, sectors, and socio-political organizations. Cadres, party members, communities, and households are also aware of the particularly important role of forests in socio-economic development and environmental protection, so that they can participate responsibly in forest management, protection and development.
He said: "Ky Son has basically prevented deforestation, illegal trading and transportation of forest products", and cited evidence: From 2017 to 2022, 155 violations were detected and handled (6 criminal cases; 149 administrative cases); the average number of violations in the period 2017 - 2022 decreased by 51.9% (25.8/53.6 cases/year) compared to the period 2011 - 2016. The average forest cover in the period 2017 - 2022 increased by 4.3% compared to the period 2011 - 2016 (from 46.05% to 50.88%).
Then he "boasted", Ky Son is a mountainous district, with very little rice fields, people mainly do agricultural production on sloping land (swidden fields), but now they are aware of the provisions of the law, gradually giving up deforestation for farming. “The acreage of the fields in 2017 was over 10,000 hectares, by 2022 it had decreased to 6,200 hectares. A number of young people chose to switch to other occupations to start a business, the number of people working far away was over 11,409 people. From 2017 to 2022, 29 communities and 1,174 households were assigned 10,580.6 hectares of forest. There were 188 village communities participating in forest protection work, with a total amount of forest environmental service fees received of over 54 billion VND. The average income per capita has reached over 28.6 million VND/year, while in 2017 it was only 18 million VND/person/year…” – he said.
A major change in Ky Son that Tho Ba Re did not forget to mention is that people who used to go into the forest to exploit wood to build houses have gradually changed their perception, using other materials instead of wood to build houses. “The number of illegal logging cases decreased from 25 cases in 2017 to 6 cases in 2022, which is a clear proof…” – he emphasized.
But Tho Ba Re also boldly said that, besides the positive points, the implementation of Directive 13-CT/TW dated January 12, 2017 also had impacts that caused difficulties for a part of the population.
He confided that the natural area of Ky Son is 209,264.51 hectares, of which 191,063.67 hectares are forests and forestry land, accounting for 91.3%, the forest coverage rate is 51.91%. The whole district has 21 communes and towns, of which 11 are border communes with more than 203 km of border adjacent to Laos. There are 5 ethnic groups living in the area including Thai, Mong, Kho Mu, Kinh and Hoa; of which, ethnic minorities account for 95%. The life, customs, habits and culture of ethnic minorities are formed and originated from the forest, depending on the forest. However, in Ky Son, the transportation system is not complete, the prices and transportation costs of construction materials such as sand, stone, cement, iron and steel are high, making it difficult for people to cover the costs of building houses and stabilizing their lives. And because they cannot enter the forest and farming is limited, a part of the population has to stay at home, has no job, is at risk of hunger and social evils.
Therefore, Tho Ba Re proposed: “To maintain and promote the results achieved over 5 years of implementing Directive No. 13-CT/TW, in Ky Son, the current land use planning in general and forestry land in particular is not suitable for the socio-economic development, security and defense situation. We propose that the Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial People's Committee approve the results of the local review so that the locality can have a land use plan to develop the district's economy. At the same time, we propose that the Provincial People's Committee continue to allocate funds for the District People's Committee to continue to allocate forests with an area of 55,215.03 hectares...”.
Listening to this proposal, I think it is right. Because I know that not only in Ky Son, but also in many mountainous districts of the province, natural forests are large production forests, but the proportion of depleted forests is not small. And I understand that if not renovated, the depleted forest areas will not be able to develop into forests with high reserves, and even less can they become production materials to help people in the highlands develop their economy.
Expressing my thoughts to some responsible people, I asked them: Was the proposal of the Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Ky Son district recorded and reported to the competent authority? These officials replied: "This conference aims to fully assess the advantages and disadvantages after 5 years of implementing Directive No. 13/CT/TW. Presentations such as those of Mr. Re are fully recorded...".
Photo: Thanh Cuong - Minh Quan
