The illegal use of forest land and deforestation still occur in many provinces despite many attempts in recent years.
Forest
productivity was also low, experts told a conference on forestry
production in northern Thai Nguyen province last week.
At the conference, organised by the National Assembly’s Economic
Committee and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, they
said forest resources played a crucial role in the country’s sustainable
development.
At present, Vietnam has 16 million hectares of forest.
The conference was told that deforestation was a complicated issue.
Although the rate of forest coverage has increased, the quality of the timber and the amount of biodiversity had declined.
Despite
being a leading timber exporter, most of Vietnam’s enterprises were
small scale and used out-dated production technology.
Its productivity in timber processing was only half of that of the Philippines and 40 percent of that in China.
Vice Chairwoman of the National Assembly, Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, said
it was necessary to re-examine forestry development policies and promote
effective production models.
She repeated the need to develop the processing of forestry products and to enhance forest protection and management.
“We need to re-organise forestry production from planting to
harvesting and processing,” she said. “It’s also necessary to establish
average to large-scale enterprises in certain economic zones.”
Dang Viet Thuan, Vice Chairman of the Thai Nguyen provincial People’s
Committee called for the amendment of certain forestry policies.
“We need to have proper funding for producing plant varieties and new
processing technology. If we don’t have good varieties, we can’t have
sustainable forests,” he said.
Participants
suggested that solutions included proper management and planning of
forestry land – and a re-examination of the country’s forest planning at
national and local levels. They also suggested allocating forestry land
and forest to households and enterprises for better and more effective
management.-VNA