Burning season

(Baonghean) - On a May afternoon, along the road from Khe Kien intersection to Luu Phong village (Luu Kien, Tuong Duong), the hot sun made us feel suffocated and stuffy. In the distance, on both sides of the road, the fields of the Thai people still had scorch marks. Some fields had been burned for a long time, some fields were still smoking. The Thai friend who was with us briefly informed us: "The season of burning fields has come again."

Seeing our curiosity, he took us to a field in Khe Kien village. From the road, it looked very close but it still took fifteen minutes to walk. We chatted with a Thai couple who were busy gathering dry trees that had been cut down a few months ago to prepare for burning. Seeing strangers, the couple seemed apprehensive.

Through a few words, he said: He is Lo Van Long and his wife is Quang Thi Lien, they are from Yen Tinh commune (Tuong Duong) and have settled here for 3 years. 3 years is also the time he has burned 3 fields. He said: "When we first came to Khe Kien village, we had no land, my wife and I had to burn the fields which took half a day to walk. Now that we have been allocated land and forest, we have burned this field for production."

Quang Thi Lien's family is burning the fields.

We asked, "People gave us the forest and we burn it every year to make fields like that, so when we run out of land, where will we get more land to make fields?" Mr. Long said: "When that time comes, the old fields will be good and we will burn them again. This land is also left by our in-laws." When we asked: "Why don't we gather it all in one place to burn, but spread it out in piles everywhere like that? Doing so can easily cause forest fires." Ms. Quang Thi Lien, standing nearby, said: "We have to burn it like that so that every place has a little bit of humus, otherwise there will be some good places and some not. If the fire spreads, it will only spread a little bit." Looking at the hot Lao winds blowing on the high hills, we suddenly felt worried, just a small spark of fire spreading out is enough to burn down the nearby forest, let alone "a little bit" as Ms. Lien said.

We continued to Xoong Con village, on both sides of the road were large hills that had been cleared by the people to plant a new corn crop. We went up to the field near the road to see people weeding the corn. The corn plants were growing as big as a hand without nitrogen fertilizer under the layer of infertile soil, growing weakly in the blazing sun. The entire forest of about 3 hectares was starting to cover with new green, but the corn field above was still a dull yellow color due to the fire that had started when the field was burned. We met Mr. Lo Van Toong and his wife Vi Thi Vinh while they were resting. Hearing that we wanted to learn about the new field season, Mr. Toong said: "This field has been done for a season. Last year, it was still good when we burned it to plant corn, but this year it has started to deteriorate a lot. We will probably have to do a new field next year."

The hardship of working hard all day in the mountains and forests made Toong's face even more haggard. He said: This large plot of land belongs to three households. It is very hard but the harvest is not much. Every farm has a good first season. At that time, the land is still fertile so the plants grow well, but by the second season, they want to give up. Since getting married, he can't remember how many times he has burned down the fields. He only knows that when the land can no longer produce, he has to give up.

When we asked: “Why don’t you fertilize the land for long-term use? If you keep burning forests like this and accidentally burn the protective forest, it is a violation of the law.” He said: “Everyone knows it is a violation, but if we don’t build new fields, what will we eat? Now the State has given us forests for production, but we can’t do anything, we just keep burning one field to another to plant trees. When we run out of forest land, we return to the old fields. They said, how can we fertilize on steep hills like this? If we fertilize, it will all be washed away when it rains heavily.”

Talking to us, Mr. Vi Van Phuc - a forest protection officer at Luu Kien line said: "In this dry season, the villagers start burning fields to prepare for planting. This is a production practice of the people for generations. Every year, the unit coordinates to propagate and educate the people about some of the dangers of burning forests for farming such as increasing the risk of forest fires and gradually losing forest area, but it has only limited it to some extent. Fortunately, up to now, every household has burned on the forest land assigned for production, there has not been a case of fire spreading to the protective forest."

Dao Tho

(Ky Son)