Century-old trees deep in the jungle of Quang Nam Province have been illegally chopped down for years to make timber for luxury furniture and construction projects in Vietnam.

Over 250 thick wood planks, at least 2.5m by 0.8m, have recently been found on the banks of the Thu Bon River in the province, which is located in the central region.

The planks of precious wood, which were around 10cm thick, were prepared to be rafted downriver when the floodwater rises.

The remote wood-gathering site is in mountainous Que Lam Commune of Nong Son District.

A Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper journalist discovered the deforestation taking place in the area, but local authorities failed to detect it. They only arrived once the huge tree trunks had been split in half.

A local named Nam said, “You can buy a plank bed of any size here, the bigger and thicker, the more expensive.

“Here, a bed of hardwood planks is priced around VND20-24 million (US$962-1,200), but the price rises by half if it is transported to Da Nang City.”

A plank bed worth VND16 million ($770) is normally sold for VND24 million ($1,200) in Da Nang, which is around 50km away, Nam said.

Entering the jungle

From the nearest highway, it took the Tuoi Tre journalist four hours on a motorbike and another four hours of hiking through the forest to reach Khe May (May Stream), which serves as the border of Phuoc Son and Nong Son Districts in Quang Nam.

The journalist was disguised as a geologist so he could reach the illegal loggers in the jungle.

A motorbike taxi driver agreed to take the journalist, but only since he was acting as a geologist. “It’s OK to take you there. If you were a journalist with a camera, I wouldn’t dare take you, even if you paid me with gold,” said the driver.

“A journalist who shows up at the illegal logging site would have no way to leave, and we, the motorbike taxi drivers, may not make it out safely,” he added. Although Khe May is a dense forest, the tracks have been smoothed out by the wheels of trucks, as well as wagons pulled by buffalos.

The path was lined with many motorbikes without license plates. The bikes had been modified to carry the heavy loads of the illegal loggers.

Huts were seen along the streams on the way to Khe May. These are where the loggers sleep at night.

Moving upstream, it was easy to see numerous planks of wood lying underwater.

The planks were gathered in piles of 90 pieces, as high as the roof of a normal house.

The area looked like a factory or a port, with the pieces of wood about to be shipped away.

A local told Tuoi Tre that when the waters in May Stream rise, the wood pieces will be bound together in rafts and floated down to cities to be sold. The rafts float on the inflated inner tubes of tires.

Reaction from authorities

After discovering the piles of wood planks at Khe May, local authorities from Nong Son District raided the area, and are planning to transport the wood to their warehouses.

Le Trung Tho, a forest management staff member of the district, admitted that the wood was discovered about ten days ago, and authorities checked the areas where big trees were being chopped down.

They have not assessed the total loss and the area destroyed.

“We are very surprised at the large volume of big trees being chopped down. The trees were not very far from the path of patrolling local forest management forces,” he said.

Phan Tuan, head of the forest management department of Quang Nam Province, confessed that is a large-scale case of deforestation. Police and relevant authorities are investigating to collect further evidence for the case.

Dak Lak Province in the Central Highlands region has also suffered great damage from deforestation by illegal loggers.

Within the five years from 2009, authorities in Dak Lak have uncovered over 10,000 cases of deforestation, or five cases a day, on average.

Within this period, 26,471 hectares of forest have been damaged in Dak Lak.