While the act of removing rhino horns or elephant tusks is strongly condemned, a Vietnamese man has questioned whether cutting natural peach trees only to get the flower-rich branches is a practice of the same nature.

Decorating houses with peach blossoms, or hoa dao in Vietnamese, is a well-established custom for people in the northern region to observe Tet, or the Lunar New Year.

Those in the south will do the same with yellow apricot blossoms, or hoa mai; the flowers, however, are usually displayed in whole trees in pots, instead of branches.

Both hoa dao and hoa mai can be cultivated en masse in plantations, but many northern people have grown fond of using wild peach blossoms, those found in the forests in mountainous areas.

Peach branches collected from the forest are favored by wealthy people as they usually grow in special, unique shapes, therefore considered ‘classy’ decorations.

In a piece sent to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper, Nguyen Dinh Thanh, a media specialist, argues that “cutting peach blossom branches from the forest is no different than trimming rhino horns and elephant tusks.”

Thanh, who earned his master’s degree in culture management in France, is currently a media executive at a local marketing firm.

In his piece, Thanh said deforestation is not only about huge logs being illegally taken from the forest, but also those small, beautiful peach blossom branches.

“Those branches will go from the forest to wealthy houses, leaving behind the cut trees with sap pouring from their wounds,” he wrote.

Thanh said many people do not mind cutting the whole peach tree only to bring a fresh breath of spring into their house, just like people could “kill an endangered animal without any slightest hesitation just to get a supposedly precious horn or a pair of tusks.”

“It is obvious that a branch of wild peach blossoms will make your house classier, but it is also obvious that the peach forests are on the verge of extinction,” Thanh warned.

What is more worrying, according to the writer, is that while a high-rise building can be built in one year, “it takes five to ten years for a wild peach tree to grow up.”

In conclusion, the author suggested two solutions to keep wild peach trees safe whenever the country celebrates Tet: creating planned and licensed plantations, and raising awareness among local citizens.

“We have been able to preserve the ancient tea bud breeds and grow them in large area, so we can do the same with wild peach trees,” he elaborated.

“We can say no to dirty food or products of manufacturers with little social responsibility and morality, so we can also say no to wild peach trees, which are being destroyed to the point of extinction.”

Thanh called for changes in such practices as using wild peach trees, rhino horns, elephant tusks and red corals, as “collecting these items is like leaving unhealable wounds onto our motherland.”

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