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Natural forests quickly ‘disappearing’ from Vietnam’s Central Highlands region

Natural forests quickly ‘disappearing’ from Vietnam’s Central Highlands region

Friday, November 13, 2015, 14:46 GMT+7

The natural forests of the Central Highlands of Vietnam have considerably shrunk in area in recent years due to illegal logging.

The region lost nearly 360,000 hectares of natural forests from 2008 to 2014, according to the forestry department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The Yok Don National Park in Dak Lak Province alone was discovered to have lost 600 trees, including 300 cubic meters of precious wood, during the first nine months of this year.

Nguyen Huu Thien, deputy head of the forest protection department and former director of Yok Don, said that felling trees is banned but fishing wood floating on rivers and canals in forests has been allowed since 2013.

So deforestation has mainly occurred along rivers such as Serepok because the waterways act as the legal route to transport wood out of the forests, Thien added.

Y D’ham ENuol, standing deputy chairman of the People’s Committee of Dak Lak, stressed that the regulation allowing fishing timber floating on rivers has acted as “a cover” to protect unlawful deforestation.

Major deforestation cases in the past came from farming projects, afforestation projects and rubber tree planting projects in the Central Highlands.

The region now has 801 such projects covering a total area of 226,000 hectares.

Lam Dong is the province that has 510 projects covering an area of 96,500 hectares. Dak Lak follows with 105 projects on 44,500 hectares and Dak Nong Province with 36 projects on 10,500 hectares.

Instead of developing forests as agreed with local authorities, Phuc Nguyen Company planted 150 hectares of rubber trees and, similarly, Loc Phat Company grew 48 hectares of coffee trees.

Anh Quoc Company installed five charcoal producing furnaces in their area meant for developing forests.

Y D’ham ENuol blamed illegal deforestation on loose management and possible collusion between local authorities and deforestation rings.

“A tree in the wild forest is not like a needle,” he said.

“Trucks carrying big trees shuttle in and out of forests but authorities turn a blind eye to them.”

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