Speaking to Nghe An Newspaper reporters, Mr. Tran Van Son - Head of the Northern Nghe An Forest Protection Management Board admitted that people were arbitrarily and massively exploiting forests and then planting new ones on protective forest land. In addition, there were many illegal constructions in protective forests. However, according to Mr. Son, these incidents were all due to historical mistakes.
Specifically, when establishing the Protection Forest Management Board in 2007, the competent authority did not compensate to reclaim the land previously handed over to the people. Because out of the 4,800 hectares of protection forest planning, about 2,000 hectares had previously been granted land ownership certificates by the State according to Decree 163, allocated forestry land according to Decree 02, and allocated land according to Decision 184 to the people. Meanwhile, the Northern Nghe An Protection Forest Management Board, although established 15 years ago, has not yet been granted a land use rights certificate, and has not yet marked the boundary of the protection forest in the field, so the work of forest management and protection has encountered many difficulties.
“About 2,000 hectares of forest land assigned to the people have not yet been recovered. Meanwhile, the Northern Nghe An Forest Protection Management Board is the unit assigned by the State to manage and protect, and is also responsible before the law for the management, protection, development and use of this forest area. Therefore, there is an overlap, which can also be understood as one forest but has two owners,” said Mr. Tran Van Son.
Not to mention the forest areas that people planted themselves after fully exploiting the planted forests of previous State projects such as 372, 661, KFW4... When the exploitation period came, most of the households that were contracted to exploit the forest arbitrarily without developing a plan for full exploitation and design documents according to regulations. The Bac Nghe An Protective Forest Management Board has drawn up a record of suspension, at the same time reported and prepared a dossier to send to the Forest Protection Department and the competent agencies of Quynh Luu district to request strict handling to set an example, however, up to now, the handling has not been thoroughly implemented. In some cases, the Bac Nghe An Protective Forest Management Board even had to send more than 20 official dispatches requesting handling, but there were still no results.
Because it cannot be handled, the illegal destruction of protective forests continues to become more and more serious. Discussing this issue, Mr. Le Ngoc Huu - Head of Hoang Mai - Quynh Luu Forest Protection Department said that the unit also received many minutes sent by the Bac Nghe An Protective Forest Management Board requesting penalties. "If according to the old regulations, penalties could be imposed. But that regulation has expired, currently there is no sanction to impose penalties," said Mr. Huu.
In addition, according to the Management Board of Bac Nghe An Protective Forest, in Tan Thang commune there is another problem left by history. That is, most of the protective forests in this commune were contracted by the Quynh Luu Forest Protection Department to protect natural forests and vegetation without authority more than 20 years ago. The contract clearly stated the right to inherit, transfer, mortgage, and be compensated for the results of labor when reclaimed..., and the term of use was 50 years. Therefore, there was a situation where households who received the contract arbitrarily destroyed forests, bought and sold, transferred protective forests, arbitrarily exploited and then arbitrarily planted forests without permission from competent authorities to change the purpose of forest land use.
Discussing this issue, Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan - Deputy Head of Nghe An Forest Protection Department admitted that the authorities are at a standstill and helpless in the face of the situation of protective forests in Quynh Luu and Hoang Mai town being arbitrarily exploited by people. Mr. Tuan also said that due to historical mistakes, it is currently impossible to handle the destruction of protective forests by people.
“This is the result of a half-hearted planning process. The land was given to the people and then planned for a protective forest. There is Vuc Mau Lake there, so planning a protective forest to protect water resources is reasonable. But when making the plan, compensation must be paid to the people to reclaim the land. Up to now, causing consequences, the Protective Forest Management Board was established but is helpless, unable to do anything when witnessing people arbitrarily exploiting the forest,” said Mr. Tuan, adding that, faced with this situation, the Forestry sector has also sent many delegations to work over the past many years but so far there have been no results.
According to Mr. Tuan, there are currently two solutions to handle this situation. The first is to reclaim the forest land that the State previously allocated to the people. Or adjust the planning, move this land area out of the protective forest, to avoid overlap.
Sharing the same view, Mr. Nguyen Xuan Dinh - Vice Chairman of Quynh Luu District People's Committee said that the previous planning of protective forests was not carried out properly, because the forest land had been previously assigned to the people. "For many years, the Bac Nghe An Protective Forest Management Board has only managed it in name. The fact that the Protective Forest Management Board said that people were destroying the protective forest and proposed to impose penalties is also incorrect. Because this forest land was assigned to the people and they have been managing it for a long time. It is their property, they have harvested it, so how can they say it is destroyed? Legally, the Bac Nghe An Protective Forest Management Board has only received it in name," said Mr. Dinh.
Regarding the solution, Mr. Dinh also agreed with the viewpoint of the Deputy Head of the Forestry Sub-Department. “In my opinion, we need to urgently review and reconsider which areas are necessary for protection, then compensate the people for land recovery. As for areas that are not necessary, they should be removed from the protection planning,” said Mr. Dinh.
On the side of the Northern Nghe An Protective Forest Management Board, this unit requested the competent authorities to prepare documents to issue Land Use Right Certificates and supplement funds for marking 3 types of forests for the unit. In addition, for households that have been contracted by the Quynh Luu Forest Protection Department (old), and have been incorrectly assigned to Tan Thang commune, the Quynh Luu District People's Committee and related agencies need to prepare documents to cancel the contract.
For households that have been granted land use right certificates by the State under Decree 163, allocated land under Decree 02, Decision 164 and forest land allocation contracts, and leased land by the State, the Bac Nghe An Protective Forest Management Board requests the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to have a handling plan. Prepare a file to hand over to local authorities for management or recover and compensate households and hand over to the Bac Nghe An Protective Forest Management Board. At the same time, direct competent agencies to strictly handle cases of violations of forestry laws, such as arbitrarily converting land use purposes to grow agricultural crops, illegally exploiting forests, illegally building houses, farms, production facilities, and businesses in protective forests.
However, the solutions proposed by the sectors and localities all have shortcomings. Specifically, regarding the current land recovery from people, the compensation cost will be very large. “If in the past, when establishing the Forest Protection Management Board to recover forest land, the cost was very small. Because at that time, we only needed to compensate for the results on the land, just needed to wait for people to finish exploiting, then recover, which would greatly limit the cost. But now, if we want to recover, we have to compensate for both the land and the assets on the land. The amount can be up to hundreds of billions of VND. This is difficult to do,” said Mr. Le Ngoc Huu - Head of the Quynh Luu - Hoang Mai Forest Protection Department.
Regarding the planning adjustment, removing this land area from the protective forest is a more feasible solution. However, at that time, the Bac Nghe An Protective Forest Management Board will almost certainly have to be dissolved. Because according to regulations, the Protective Forest Management Board is only allowed to be established when it has an area of 5,000 hectares or more. The Bac Nghe An Protective Forest Management Board currently has only 4,800 hectares, which is a special case because it does not meet the criteria. If the planning is adjusted, removing from the protective forest about 2,000 hectares that were previously handed over to the people, the remaining area of the Bac Nghe An Protective Forest Management Board will be too small. And the dissolution of this Board is inevitable.
“Like Dien Chau district, if the protective forest area is not enough to establish a management board, then it will be handed over to the district for management. What’s the problem?”, Vice Chairman of Quynh Luu district People’s Committee stated his opinion.