The proposal submitted to the Government by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), said the taskforce should comprise a central committee, local agencies, park rangers, police and border guards.

It called for Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to approve an annual VND100 billion (USD 5.85 million) program to train park rangers and recruit 3,000 new ones. The proposal is part of a recent ministerial report on forest protection and the conflict between illegal loggers and officials.

According to the MARD’s report, in this year’s first six months, 4,841 cases of illegal deforestation in 28 cities and provinces were reported due to an increase in population, lax management and collusion with local authorities. Rangers detected most of the cases in Binh Phuoc Province in the southeast, Lam Dong and Dak Nong provinces in the Central Highlands and in central coast provinces. The report cited hundreds of attacks by illegal loggers on officials, including 22 more violent attacks that injured 14 officials. Some illegal loggers and poachers had attempted to hit officials with their vehicles or attacked them with used syringes that could be HIV infected. Concerned agencies have also detected 533 cases of illegal transport of wildlife and seized 7,468 animals and 19,121 kg of wild meat. The ministry said most of these animals were in transit from other countries to be shipped overseas.

Around 940 ha of the 1,313 ha of forest cleared in the first six months of 2009 have been used to grow crops, with a small proportion being used for coffee or fish farms. Many local authorities had neglected their duty or colluded with illegal loggers to log and occupy land, the ministry’s report said without providing details.

Cao Duc Phat, Minister of MARD, said in the proposal that many people have migrated to forested areas causing an increased demand for farm land.

He added many private enterprises hadn’t properly managed protective and productive forests. According to the law in Vietnam, state and private enterprises can be granted the right to intermix trees and crops in protective and productive forests in return for protecting them. A total of 8 million ha had been designated for this type of protection.

The Forest Protection Department under the MARD recently reported the country has a total area of 10.9 million ha of forest. Forest area per capita in Vietnam was 0.14ha, much lower than the world’s average rate of 0.97 ha.

The agency also said several flora and fauna species in protective and productive forests are on the verge of extinction because of clearing. A large area of 40-year-old pine trees had been cut illegally in Xuan Tho Forest, just 10 km from the center of Da Lat Town in the Central Highlands. Around 200 trees with diameters of up to 70 cm were cleared for logs, while some locals had begun planting coffee.

The trees (Pinus kesiya) were purebred and have been supplying seeds, considered by park rangers the best pine seeds in the country, to pine forests nationwide for decades.

On August 18, 2009, Quang Nam People’s Court canceled a scheduled hearing to demand an extended probe into the province’s biggest-ever logging case. Nine defendants have been accused of illegally exploiting 990,398 cubic meters of wood from a protected forest in Nong Son District, formerly known as Que Son District, between 2005 and 2006.

The MARD recently announced a nationwide campaign to protect the forests until April 20010 to raise awareness among residents living near forests and to enforce inspections. The Forest Protection Department has also divided forests into three classifications - specialized, protective and production forests to aid the assessment of the damage.

The specialized areas are 1.55 million ha that include 12 national parks, 64 natural reserves and 18 protective cultural-historic-environmental forest areas.

The agency said it was speeding up a program to plant five million ha of forest that was launched in 1998 to increase the country’s forest area to 16 million ha, including 6 millions ha of protective forests, 2million ha of specialized forests and 8 million ha of productive forests.

                                                                           Source: Thanh Nien, Aug. 23, 2009