Special forests in a sanctuary in the central Vietnamese province of Quang Nam are home to gold mining and logging, but the local forest management unit denies responsibility for letting these activities run rampant.

Even worse, a construction site without any permit in Nam Giang District has had the support of special vehicles and tents for exploitation for months without the knowledge of local foresters.

A five-kilometer road leading to the center of the forests to facilitate deforestation has also been built.

Ownerless forests

Despite the fact that the special forests in Khe Vinh, part of the Song Thanh Sanctuary, have been chopped down in an organized manner, local authorities have found reasons to evade responsibility.

The management board of the sanctuary argued that it has transferred the management of 65 hectares of the special forests to the management board of the Song Bung 4 electricity power plant.

Part of the area belongs to the reservoir of the plant when it started accumulating water last August.

Authorities of Nam Giang District have the same point of view toward the management of the forests.

Meanwhile, the management board of an electricity power plant is granted no power to operate or manage anything except the turbines, the water in the reservoir, and the generation of electricity.

Before water began being stored, authorities allowed the exploitation of timber in the area of the reservoir, which were formerly forests. So far, 500 cubic meters out of an estimated 1,000 cubic meters of wood in the reservoir have been processed.

But, in reality, the forest areas reaching beyond the water line of the reservoir of Song Tranh 4 have been logged too in recent months.

A forest area stretching from the water line of the reservoir outward three kilometers upstream has been totally leveled.

Excavators, bulldozers, and big tree trunks are scattered across the area.

In addition, a five-meter-wide road has been built from the reservoir up to the center of the forests.

Besides the logging, the forests have also been a site for gold mining, with the permanent noise of engines disturbing the uninhabited forests.

But the management board of the sanctuary has not heard of this forest destruction.

Around 35 more drivers have been ready at the reservoir to be hired to transport lumber out of the forests for a long time, said a motor boat driver.

The ‘power’ of forest management

Visiting the destroyed forests, Huynh Tan Duc, director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Quang Nam, hinted that the value of the forests seemed to belong to a few individuals.

“It would be better if we didn’t exploit forests under the reservoir.

“We can’t contribute much to the state budget, but the value of the destroyed forests is many times more than that.”

Phan Tuan, head of the forest management department of Quang Nam – the umbrella unit of the Song Thanh Sanctuary – insisted, “The local forest management unit must take responsibility.”

He meant to blame the foresters of the Song Thanh Sanctuary.

Nguyen Tri, director of the Song Thanh Sanctuary covering the special forests, said at a recent meeting that the management of the forests belongs to the Song Bung 4 hydro power plant and the management of gold mining in the forests goes to the People’s Committee of Nam Giang District.

Tri also said that he has only 68 forest rangers to cover a total of 75,000 hectares of forest.

Concerning the five kilometer road built in the special forests, Tri argued that it caused no harm because no tree was chopped down to build it.

However, agriculture department director Duc rejected this, asserting that it is unacceptable to say there were no trees on such a long road in a natural forest.

“Foresters are so powerful. They can say a forest has trees or not whenever they like,” Duc commented at the meeting.

To conclude the meeting, Duc instructed the authority of the Song Thanh Sanctuary to submit a thorough report about the destruction of forests to his agency before December 15.

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