The incident of people in Poom Lau village encroaching on land managed by Co Ba Forestry Farm was reported by Nghe An Newspaper on November 26, 2023 in the article "Poom Lau "hot" about forest land...". Previously, on November 16, 2023, the Provincial People's Committee issued Official Dispatch No. 9839/UBND-NN assigning the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to preside over and coordinate with relevant departments, branches and units to inspect and handle. An interdisciplinary working group was then established to carry out the task of inspection and verification; and on December 18, 2023, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development issued Official Dispatch No. 673/BC-SNN.KL to report to the Provincial People's Committee.
The incident and the local solution have been clarified as follows: At 7:30 a.m. on November 5, 2023, about 60 women from Poom Lau village brought hoes to the newly exploited forest plantation area in Lot 35, Section 10, Sub-area 193, which is managed by Co Ba Forestry Enterprise, to dig holes to plant acacia trees. Upon discovering the incident, the forest protection force of Co Ba Forestry Enterprise coordinated with the authorities and Chau Binh Commune Police to propagate, explain, and mobilize people not to arbitrarily dig holes to plant trees on land managed by the Forestry Enterprise. However, the people did not listen and continued to dig holes to plant trees.
Faced with that situation, the working group of Quy Chau district went to the scene to propagate and mobilize people to stop digging holes to plant trees and return home. On November 6, 2023, the District Party Committee and People's Committee of Quy Chau district, along with the Party Committee and the authorities of Chau Binh commune, coordinated with Song Hieu Agricultural Forestry One Member Co., Ltd. and Co Ba Forestry Farm to organize a direct dialogue with the people of Poom Lau village. At the dialogue, the leaders of the District Party Committee and People's Committee continued to propagate, mobilize, and explain to the people to understand and trust the leadership of the District Party Committee and People's Committee; agreed to request Song Hieu Agricultural Forestry One Member Co., Ltd. to properly implement the plan and roadmap for handing over land to local management. Specifically, handing over 75 hectares of land in the Met area, including about 28 hectares of planted forest, about 30 hectares of natural forest, and 17 hectares of other land; except for 15 hectares of Met planting, which will be handed over in 2030; Temporarily, in the Met area, Co Ba Forestry will hand over the land to the local authorities for management as soon as the forest is exploited and will not replant the land after exploitation; the time to hand over the land to the local authorities after completing the exploitation of 28 hectares of acacia forest is in the first quarter of 2024.
Regarding the cause of the incident, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development determined that Song Hieu Agricultural Forestry Company Limited and Co Ba Forestry Farm were slow to hand over the land to the locality; during the process of exploiting acacia, they combined burning and treating the ground cover after exploitation, but did not notify the local authorities and propagate and explain to the people. The action of clearing and burning the ground cover of Co Ba Forestry Farm on the area that had been checked and committed to returning to the locality caused misunderstanding among the people of Poom Lau village. Because of concerns that the Forestry Farm would continue to dig holes to plant trees for the next cycle, the people gathered in large numbers with planting tools, with the aim of not letting Co Ba Forestry Farm replant the forest.
On the part of the local government, the slow grasp and orientation of public opinion, lack of information, led to passive surprise in the face of the situation that had occurred. The work of inspecting, urging, and directing the handover of land to local management was not regular, leading to people not being able to determine the actions of the authorities at all levels in implementing the commitment to return the land of Co Ba Forestry Farm to local management. People did not have a clear understanding of the information about the local government's land recovery roadmap in 2023, leading to misunderstandings and acts of gathering crowds and fighting for land that occurred on November 5, 2023.
Reporting to the Provincial People's Committee on the social situation in Poom Lau village, according to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, the current thinking of the people of Poom Lau village is stable, they agree and agree with the local government's handling of the case according to the solutions agreed upon at the dialogue on November 6, 2023. The local government, villages, hamlets and people have great confidence in the active and timely leadership of the Party Committee, local government, sectors and levels in the recent past. However, the potential risk of destabilizing the local social situation still exists if there are no decisive and effective solutions to handle the land recovery to ensure the progress promised at the dialogue.
According to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Poom Lau village has 157 households, including 60 Thai households, 50 poor households, and 25 near-poor households. Through the survey, most of the people do not have land for agricultural and forestry cultivation; their daily work is mainly working as hired laborers to exploit and plant acacia trees for forestry farms. Therefore, the need to reclaim land to hand over to the local government to grant to Poom Lau households for agricultural and forestry production is completely legitimate. Therefore, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development proposed that the Provincial People's Committee direct the implementation of 4 solutions to completely handle the incident and stabilize the situation in the coming time, specifically:
For the People's Committee of Quy Chau district, direct the implementation of coordination, propaganda, grasp and orientation of public opinion; promptly develop a land use plan after receiving the handover; urge the land handover from the Forestry Department to local management; arrange resources to hand over the land on site for the land that has completed acacia exploitation to the management board of Poom Lau village for management, temporarily stop all activities that impact the above-mentioned forest land, until there is a decision on land allocation and issuance of land use right certificates by competent authorities.
For Chau Binh Commune People's Committee, strengthen propaganda, explanation, mobilization, grasp, and orientation of public opinion in the commune, report to superiors promptly to have solutions right from the beginning. Propaganda for people not to arbitrarily dig holes to plant trees, not to have other impacts on land in the process of handing over to the locality, especially the Met area.
For Song Hieu Agricultural Forestry Company Limited and Co Ba Forestry Farm, speed up the progress of handing over land to local management according to the agreed plan and roadmap, specifically: In 2023, temporarily hand over 81.56 hectares of land in the Met area to local management according to Document No. 368/TTr-LT dated November 7, 2023. During the time of completing land recovery procedures, do not carry out activities that impact the land area after exploitation (such as: clearing, clearing, burning vegetation, post-exploitation materials, digging holes, planting trees...) to avoid causing misunderstandings among the people. Complete land recovery procedures, submit to competent authorities for decision and hand over land to local management in the first quarter of 2024.
For the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, direct and guide the Department of Natural Resources and Environment of Quy Chau district, Song Hieu Agricultural Forestry Company Limited, and Co Ba Forestry Farm to prepare a dossier to voluntarily return the forestry land area according to the committed roadmap after the 2017 review. After having the dossier to return the land, it is requested to direct the early completion of the procedures to submit to the Provincial People's Committee for the Decision to recover the land so that Co Ba Forestry - Song Hieu Agricultural Forestry Company Limited can hand it over to the locality for management and use.
Present at Poom Lau village on December 20, 2023, it was found that the Inter-sectoral Working Group and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development closely and accurately assessed the situation in this locality. Secretary of Poom Lau Party Cell, Mr. Lo Thanh Son said that after exploiting 28 hectares of acacia trees, Co Ba Forestry Farm organized the handover of land in the field for local management.
On the day the Forestry handed over the land, the Party Committee, the Executive Committee and the people of Poom Lau village all participated. The people shared the same wish that the superiors would consider and allow the community of Poom Lau village to clear a runway to prevent and fight natural forest fires and to plant a crop of acacia together so as not to waste land while the competent authorities carry out the steps to reclaim the land according to the provisions of the law.
