Developing the forestry industry in a sustainable direction, protecting forests from the roots

Attending and chairing the conference was comrade Hoang Nghia Hieu - Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee. Also attending were leaders of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, members of the Steering Committee for urgent forest issues of the province; representatives of the Forestry Science and Technology Association and districts, cities and towns.

In 2021, despite implementing tasks in a context of many difficulties and challenges due toCovid-19 epidemicDespite harsh weather and climate conditions and natural disasters, Nghe An's forestry work still achieved planned targets and set tasks.

Delegates attending the conference. Photo: Nguyen Hai

Specifically, the province has monitored and updated the development of forest resources in 2021 according to the announcement in Decision 418/QD-2021 for an area of ​​962,896.97 hectares of forest; at the same time, reviewedforestry planningnational forestry planning in the province and integrated into the province's master plan, participated in giving comments on draft national forestry planning for the 2021-2030 period and vision to 2050; reported on the current status of building a provincial forestry development plan; concentrated forest use and development work was 19,253 ha/18,000 planned, reaching 105.83%; taking care of 54,000/54,000 ha of forest; protecting 964,474.27 ha/964,660 ha of forest, reaching 99.98% of the plan; during the year, licenses were granted to 25 facilities to produce 33.479 million seedlings.

In addition, the province continues to develop a sustainable forest management plan. As a result, 24/24 forest owners who are organizations have had their plans approved; 5 forest owners who are organizations have had their sustainable forest management plans approved by the Provincial People's Committee. Up to now, the whole province has had 10,288.84 hectares of forest out of a total of over 180 thousand hectares of forest, which have been granted FSC sustainable forest management certificates.

Provincial leaders inspected and surveyed the field before approving the investment policy for the High-tech Forestry Zone in Nghi Lam Commune, Nghi Loc. Photo: Document

In 2021, Nghe An implemented the payment policy.forest environmental services,Accordingly, the total revenue was 125,526 billion VND; 110.27 billion VND was spent; 93.8 billion VND was allocated as a source of funding for reforestation when converting forest use to other purposes; advised the Ministry of Agriculture and the Prime Minister to approve the policy of converting forest use with 3 projects, submitted to the Provincial People's Council for approval of 3 Resolutions; converted forest use to other purposes for 20 projects with a total area of ​​523.23 hectares of forest. Forest protection and fire prevention work associated with the implementation of Directive 13-CT in 2017 of the Secretariat was basically good. During the year, 786 cases of forestry law violations were detected and handled. The whole province had 24 forest fires causing damage to 48,128 hectares, a 50% decrease in the number of cases compared to 2020.

At the conference, through their presentations, delegates also pointed out a number of shortcomings, limitations and causes, notably the national forestry planning for the 2021-2030 period, with a vision to 2050, which is still slow to be integrated into the province's general planning and has not yet been approved by competent authorities; the direction of developing a sustainable forest management plan towards granting forest certification, despite efforts, has only approved 5/24 forest owners; reforestation and forest protection workillegal loggingnot yet guaranteed sustainability...

Based on the assessment of the results achieved in 2021 and the requirements for the coming time, the conference agreed on 12 key tasks for forestry work in 2022. To implement them, there will be 9 main solutions. In parallel with the proposal of 4 recommendations from the central ministries and branches, the province also requested the district-level People's Committees to implement 2 groups of urgent solutions.

Comrade Hoang Nghia Hieu delivered a concluding speech at the conference and responded to a number of recommendations from districts and towns on forestry policies. Photo: Nguyen Hai

Speaking at the conference, comrade Hoang Nghia Hieu acknowledged and highly appreciated the efforts in the field of forestry, especially in the context of the complicated epidemic, but the High-tech Forestry Zone project was born. However, the Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee also frankly pointed out some limitations such as unstable forest fire prevention work, slow policies on forest protection and fire fighting, slow development of forest use planning and data discrepancies.

To effectively carry out forestry work in the coming time, it is recommended that the sector do a good job of propagating forest protection from the root; focus on solutions to create sustainable livelihoods for people; effectively implement the proposed forestry targets, pay attention to forest fire prevention and fighting; link forest protection work with sustainable forest certification according to Directive No. 10 of the Provincial Party Committee Standing Committee; complete the approval of sustainable forest protection planning; guide the exploitation of planted forests, especially forests formed from the budget to closely monitor and limit errors and losses; resolutely implement the work of allocating land and forests to people; urgently examine the settlement of the Forest Protection Project for the period 2016-2020...

In addition to the above content, based on the suggestions, the Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee requested the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to refer to the experiences of other provinces to advise the province on the mechanism for paying allowances for specialized forces on duty to prevent forest fires, and the policy of paying environmental services to attract local people to protect forests at the root...

By 2021, Nghe An will have a total forested land area of ​​962,896.97 hectares, including 788,991.1 hectares of natural forest and 173,905.87 hectares of planted forest; non-forested land is 272,748.16 hectares, forest cover is 58.41%.