Part III: Sawmills "swallow" illegal timber
A fact that makes public opinion very indignant is that at the forest gates in remote areas such as Que Phong, Thanh Chuong..., many sawmills (licensed and unlicensed) have sprung up. This activity has unintentionally helped "forest bandits" destroy the forest, because these sawmills "actively" swallow large quantities of illegal timber day and night, then "rationalize" the timber to the lowlands. The functional sector has periodically inspected, but "cats are still cats..."-->> See Part II: Thanh Chuong - Destruction of upstream forests Sawmills spring up right at the forest gate
Sawmill built right at the forest gate
Pretending to be people buying wood, we made our way to Tien Phong commune (Que Phong) and were introduced by a local: "You go to Mr. B's sawmill (a police officer of Tien Phong commune), they have whatever kind of wood you want...". Right from the beginning of the alley, we could hear the sound of a saw, the sawing machine screeching loudly. Mr. B's wife enthusiastically said: "Come in for a drink and then come to my workshop to see the goods, we have everything, especially pơmu". I "got to the point" right away: We want to buy wood to bring downstream, how can we "get in"? Mr. B's wife "revealed": "If we go to the intersection, we only have to go through one station?" - "So how much does a cubic meter of wood cost?" - I asked. "Here, they load the whole truck, the price at home is 11 million VND/cubic meter of dổi wood, and they "cover" it themselves". According to the sawmill owner, wood from the forest is usually gathered at the sawmill at night, and whoever comes to buy it comes at night.
We walked around Mr. B’s sawmill and saw that there was also planted wood, but it was just “to hide the world’s eyes”, but deep inside we saw all kinds of natural wood lying around. The sawmills were operating at full capacity, mainly sawing large trees into boards and boxes waiting to be picked up. The sawmill owner also took us into her house to see the pơmu and dổi slabs with a diameter of 1-1.5m to be used as bed frames that had been ordered by customers.
We found Mr. T's carpentry workshop right next to the commune's asphalt road and asked if there was any pơmu wood. Mr. T and a few carpenters stopped the planer and said: "We mainly buy wood from Muong Dan, mainly pơmu, not by the cubic meter but by the 2.4m long sawn piece". "So the forest rangers don't check the origin of the wood?". Mr. T said: "The wood is already here, so who will catch it?". Mr. T's son said that if pơmu was closed, it would be 1.4 million VND/m2. At this carpentry workshop, we saw that most of the wood had no origin, the workshop owner turned the forest wood into "finished" wood to "rationalize" it for traders to bring downstream.
"Illegal field" sawmill in Thong Thu - Que Phong
In Thong Thu commune, the forests are being destroyed day and night, and countless amounts of wood are being gathered on the road to Thong Thu border gate. People have set up many "field" sawmills, brazenly sawing wood illegally and then stacking the wood in neat rows to wait for "dispersal". In addition, sawmills are also set up right in the middle of resettlement areas in Dong Van and Thong Thu to saw wood. When we asked a sawmill owner, we were told that the wood is being cut to serve resettled people in building stilt houses. But during the investigation, it was found that these sawmills were "hiding" behind resettlement areas to saw wood to build houses to gather illegal wood.
Going back to Thanh Thuy commune, Thanh Chuong district, right at the Thanh Thuy forest gate, there is Thanh Thuy Forest Product Control Station. But nearby, there are 2 large sawmills. Most of the wood that "slips" through Thanh Thuy's "gate" flows into these workshops. In broad daylight, motorbikes still openly transport wood to "gather" at these workshops without any prevention from the authorities. Not to mention, in Dung town, there is also a famous sawmill of Mr. N, the amount of illegal wood "smuggled" here every day but also without any inspection.
License abuse
It is known that on “paper”, Hung Nguyen currently has 18 licensed wood processing establishments. However, when we went to the field, we found that the number of sawmills in the district is much larger. For example, in Hung Linh commune (Hung Nguyen), on paper there are only 4 processing establishments but in reality the whole commune has more than 10 establishments. Many unlicensed sawmills are still operating openly. Large workshops buy wood directly from wholesalers, while small workshops buy wood from large workshops.
Posing as a wood buyer, we went to Mr. Hao’s sawmill in Hung Nguyen Town. Here, the wood was cut into sheets about 5cm thick, mainly from dổi, de, and Dạ hương wood. When asked about the origin of the wood, Mr. Hao said that most of this wood was purchased through the hands of brokers. Every time we needed goods, we just had to call to notify, and the brokers would deliver the wood to our homes, and the customer would pay the “law making” fee. For each car trip, the law making fee was about 2-5 million VND depending on the type of wood. These cars often traveled at night to avoid detection and the law making was very quick.
We continued to visit the wood workshops in Hung Linh commune. Mr. Th., the owner of a wood workshop in hamlet 9, said: Recently, he has just poured in nearly 1 billion VND worth of wood of all kinds. At Mr. Th.'s sawmill, there are currently nearly 100m3 of wood, mainly de and dổi wood. Mr. Th. said that he bought this amount of wood through an intermediary and transported it by waterway. To bring the wood to the workshop smoothly, Mr. Th. had to spend more than 20 million VND in "legal" money. "There are 2 ways to transport wood downstream: by waterway or by road. As for the road, you have to know the "bosses" and then transport it by... prison car to get back," Mr. Th. revealed.
Mr. Th. introduced us to Mr. Nghia's wood workshop, one of the largest wood workshops in Hung Nguyen district. Around the sawmill, wood was piled up all over the roads, gardens, and alleys. Dozens of blocks of wood were lying haphazardly on the dike. According to a resident living near the sawmill, the wood here was brought from many places, from Laos or from the mountains. Mr. Nghia's sawmill focused on precious woods such as lim, sen, po mu, and lat hoa. Once the wood arrived at the workshop, everything was considered to be safe. Both Mr. H. and Mr. Th. firmly affirmed that if we wanted to buy wood and bring it to Vinh city, they would send a truck to transport it without being arrested. When there was a buyer, the wood would be cut into panels, then a truck would be hired to transport it at night without being detected.
We wandered around to many other sawmills in Yen Thanh, Do Luong… After asking around, most of the sawmills had licenses, even the forest wood in the mill had licenses. It turned out that the mill owners only “displayed” the licensed wood as a “front”, while behind it was all illegal wood. The forest product purchase and sale papers were used over and over again and then… reused.
It is known that there are 1,364 forest product processing establishments in the province, but 821 of them do not have a business license. This number also reflects the lax management of the forest product processing sector by relevant levels and sectors. The existence of illegal processing establishments, in addition to increasing deforestation, also causes budget losses, makes it difficult to manage forest products, and creates an unhealthy production and business environment.
Illegal timber “leaving” the vast forests is still secretly “smuggled” into sawmills from the highlands to the lowlands every day. Taking advantage of the licenses, these mills organize the purchase of timber of unknown origin everywhere, saw it into finished products and then sell it openly without the “knowledge” of those in charge and authority in the forestry sector.
Circular No. 01/2012/TT/BNNPTNT of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development dated January 4, 2012 regulating legal forest product dossiers and checking the origin of forest products:
Article 9. Domestically exploited forest products
1. Main exploitation records, exploitation and utilization from natural forests and concentrated planted forests.
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b. For wood that meets the standards for stamping forest hammer according to the regulations of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, it includes: Minutes confirming that the wood has been stamped with forest hammer according to the forest product inventory.
Article 20. Forest product records at wild animal breeding and processing facilities.
Forest product records at wild animal breeding and processing establishments include: Forest product import and export tracking books, sales invoices, forest product inventories and documents related to imported and exported forest products as prescribed in this Circular.
Article 26. Inspection of forest product processing and trading establishments.
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2. Owners of processing and trading establishments must comply with inspection requests of forest rangers and immediately present records on the management of processing and trading establishments and the origin of forest products as prescribed in this Circular.
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