More initiation of forest conservation mechanisms

Animal traps were removed by Dong Nai Nature - Cultural Reserve forest rangers during forest patrols

With the objective of contributing to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving forests, supporting the achievement of the National Action Plan on climate change mitigation, the Provincial People's Committee has approved the REDD+ action plan in the province for the period 2020-2030.

Leader in forest protection

In 1997, Dong Nai was the first province in the country to close its forests to protect, restore and develop natural forests. The results were very positive when Dong Nai province became the province with the largest forest area in the Southeast, with abundant natural resources, diverse ecosystems, etc.

According to Forest Protection Department of Dong Nai Province, there are nearly 170 thousand hectares of forested land in the province. The rate of greenery cover in the province is now more than 54.3%, of which forest cover reaches 30.5% of natural land.

Dong Nai is also one of the few localities that still retain a large area of natural forest with more than 150,000 hectares of seamless forest, which has been assessed by scientists as a biodiversity area of Vietnam and the world. Dong Nai also has the last remaining area of tropical moist lowland forest in southern Vietnam, preserving rare and precious animal and plant genetic resources, etc. In particular, forests also play an important role in regulating the climate, as well as water sources not only for Dong Nai but also for the Southeast region. Deputy Director of the Forest Protection Department Le Viet Dung said that “Dong Nai is considered a good forest-keeping province throughout the country”.

Despite being assessed as a good forest-keeping locality, Dong Nai forest still faces many risks of being encroached.

Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Van Goi said that the risk from illegal logging affecting forests in the province today is not great, because in fact, over the years, Dong Nai has well controlled the illegal logging situation.

However, according to Mr. Le Van Goi, the biggest risk affecting the forest area in the province today comes from the pressure on land. Specifically, in addition to some forest areas to be converted to implement works and projects, some other forest areas are currently being encroached to turn into agricultural land. This happened due to a number of shortcomings in the forest allocation policy to local people. “In the past, there was a policy on forest land allocation for farmers to combine agro-forestry production. But now agriculture is predominating over forestry. There is a situation of cutting down forests to gain space for agricultural production.” - said Mr. Le Van Goi.

Continued protection and improvement of forest quality

 
Rangers of Cat Tien National Park are patrolling and protecting forests

In order to minimize the risks of impacts on forests and towards sustainable goals, in the past years, Dong Nai has implemented the target program of sustainable forestry development in the period of 2016 - 2020.

Mr. Nguyen Van Dung, Deputy Head of Department of Forest Development and Inspectorate, Forest Protection Sub-Department said that recently, the provincial People's Committee has signed a decision approving the REDD+ action plan as an additional component to the target program of sustainable forestry development in the province.

The objective of the program is to conserve and improve the quality of forests, contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving forest carbon stocks, and reducing climate change; protect and develop forests sustainably in order to improve the quality of natural forests, expand the area and improve the quality of planted forests through improvement of forest regeneration techniques, forest restoration, etc.

In addition, according to Mr. Nguyen Van Dung, the plan also sets out specific targets for forest conservation and development. Accordingly, in addition to continuing to manage and closely protect the existing forest area, Dong Nai aims to plant 120 hectares of special-use forests and protection forests in the period 2020-2030. Along with that, its localities will also replant more than 30,000 hectares of production forests after being exploited.

Thus, with the REDD+ program, the first goal is to conserve primeval forests, as these are the most carbon-rich, most sustainable forests with much greater resilience than degraded forests. Besides, there is also the rehabilitation of degraded forests. REDD+ also supports alternatives to industrial timber harvesting to ensure ecosystem resilience.

In order to conserve and develop forests, besides protecting and expanding forest areas, minimizing human impacts on forests is also an objective. Therefore, the REDD+ action plan also considers the creation of livelihoods for people, minimizing the negative impacts on forests as an important goal. Therefore, in the approved REDD + action program, Dong Nai also offers solutions to create livelihoods for people from the forest, thereby minimizing the negative impacts of human impact on the forest.

Specifically, Dong Nai will continue to allocate forest protection contracts to households and communities with an average of more than 8.4 thousand hectares of forests per year; make payment of forest environmental services to forest owners who are organizations, households who are contracted to forestry land, contracted to protect forests on an average area of over 140,000 ha/year.

Mr. Le Van Goi said that REDD+ is a service from an ecosystem that can be compared to a forest environment service. People participate in REDD+ to protect forests to exploit forest ecosystems, including to earn income from forest environmental services, from selling forest carbon, ecological services associated with tourism and indigenous agricultural and forestry products, thereby improve the lives of people. “This is a new approach, applied in many countries around the world and is considered a sustainable financial mechanism for conserving biodiversity resources and reducing poverty.” - said Mr. Le Van Goi.

In order to raise awareness of people on forest protection and participation in REDD+ implementation, Dong Nai will also select 23 communes to propagate and raise people's awareness in forest protection. In particular, priority will be given to communes with forests and densely populated forests.

By Nam Vu