VietNamNet Bridge – In March 2011, the Lam Dong provincial people’s committee instructed relevant branches to stop licensing more rubber projects to private enterprises. However, it had had suffered heavily for the projects already.

In 2009-2011, investors, encouraged by the rubber latex price increase, flocked to Lam Dong to grow rubber. The price reached its peak at VND100 million per ton in May 2011.

By March 25, 2011, the time when the provincial authorities decided not to license more private run rubber projects, it had granted license to 43 projects. It was estimated that 19,500 hectares of forests in Da Huoai, Da The and Bao Lam had been cleared to give the site for rubber growing areas.

The deforestation was then found in 25 out of the 43 projects, with 241 cases discovered, in which 237 hectares of forests and 1,753 cubic meters of wood were harmed. These included 164 hectares in Bao Lam district, 51 hectares in Da The and 22 hectares in Da Huoai.

Da The was not the district which had the largest harmed forest area, but it led the three districts in the amount of harmed forestry products (826 cubic meters of wood).

The volume of wood exploited in reality was thousands of cubic meters higher than initially planned. In 10/15 projects, the volume of exploited wood was higher than 1,269 cubic meters, including the 370 cubic meters of the 2nd-group wood (valuable wood).

In Bao Lam, the gap between the real exploited and the designed volume reached 1,834 cubic meters. The exploited timber was reported as the invaluable one, the 5th-7th group timber in the poor forests. However, in fact, it was all valuable wood.

To date, the violations have been found in 98 cases, for which competent agencies imposed the fine of VND791 million, a modest sum of money if compared with the big profits the investors could make from exploiting the forests and selling valuable wood.

Growing rubber or destroying forests?

The Lam Dong provincial authorities have granted licenses to grow 12,000 hectares in the locality so far. However, a report showed that rubber has been grown only on 40 percent of the allocated land, while the remaining is the “deserted land,” which is understood as the forests where all the precious forestry products have been exploited. After pocketing money from selling wood, the investors do not intend to develop rubber growing projects as promised.

In Bao Lam, for example, investors registered to grow 5,000 hectares of rubber, but only 1,600 hectares have been developed.  Manh Tuan Company Ltd has grown 10 hectares out of the 183 hectares it asked for. The figures are 35/240 hectares for Bao Loc Phat Company, 20/229 hectares for Phuong Hai and 25/175 hectares for Quan Ngoc.

The rubber projects have also become “immovable” in Da The district. By 2011, the local authorities had granted the licenses to grow 390 hectares, but only 7 hectares of rubber has been developed so far.

Chau Hai Nguyen, the investor of a project on growing 500 hectares in Da Huoai, said the investment rate is too high, which makes it impossible for investors to arrange enough capital. According to him, it costs the investors VND2 billion every year to develop 50 hectares of rubber.

Thien Nhien