VietNamNet Bridge – After the old trees in the Yok Don National Park were
chopped down by illegal lumberjacks, the young trees in the forest have also
disappeared recently.

Forests disappearing

Tran Van Thanh, Acting Director of the Yok Don National Park, has recently
affirmed before the press agencies that thanks to the drastic measures taken by
the forest rangers, the deforestation in Yok Don has decreased by 80 percent.

However, local people have affirmed that what is happening there is quite
different. They said the forests have been devastated every day, and illegal
lumberjacks now don’t spare even young trees.

And the truth is that the forest has got nearly empty because of the serious
deforestation recently. The reporters, who were present at the forest on January
6, saw with their eyes a lot of stumps with the diameter of 30-70 cm which have
been just chopped down.

On the stumps left on the site, one could see the records of the forest rangers
who took note the days they discovered the damaged trees, mostly in early
January 2013 or in late December 2012. Some other trees seen lying on the ground
did not have any records. It was because they had been just chopped down, and
the young leaves began wilt.

T, a local resident, who acted as the “tour guide” to the reporter, said: “Don’t
believe the records. Sometimes the records were left by illegal lumberjacks.”

He explained that illegal lumberjacks sometimes bring paints with themselves
when going to the forest. After cutting down a tree, they would write down the
dates on the stumps. “When seeing the dates here, you may think that the trees
were cut down a long time ago. But in fact, they were just chopped down some
days ago,” he said.

Also according to T, previously, illegal lumberjacks only cut down old precious
trees, because the precious woods were all very expensive. However, they
nowadays cut down all the trees they can sell for money, because there have been
no more old trees to cut down.

T was true. Within a one meter square meter area of the biggest forbidden forest
in Vietnam, the reporters could not find any precious wood, and they only found
the stumps of young trees just cut down some days ago.

A member of the reporters’ group tried to count how many trees were cut down,
but he then gave up, because they were numerous.

Meanwhile, what the reporters could see was just what happened in one of the
areas of the forest. T affirmed that the devastation can be seen in all the 120
areas of the forest.

80 percent of deforestation cases prevented?

Tran Van Thanh, Acting Director of the Yok Don National Park, the biggest
national park in Vietnam, which covers an areas of 115,000 hectares, has
affirmed that since he took the office, 80 percent of the deforestation cases
has been prevented.

However, what people can see with their eyes show that Thanh was not true. The
forests are getting smaller every day, because the trees have been cut down
every day.

Despite the strict protection, illegal lumberjacks still penetrate into the
forest easily and easily carry the precious wood away from the forests.
Especially, two elephants were killed in the core area of the national park some
days ago.

Thien Nhien