VietNamNet Bridge – Deforestation is not the story of some specific communes or provinces. Forests have been devastated all over the country for firewood, hydropower and agriculture development.

A report by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) showed that Vietnam now has 13.1 million hectares of forests, including 10 million hectares of natural forests.

However, half of the natural forests are poor and regenerated forests. Meanwhile, the area of primeval forest and the forest of high trees just account for 10 percent.

The forest area has been decreasing rapidly in recent years. About 1,700 hectares of forests has been eliminated so far this year, of which, 700 hectares were destroyed by humans, while the other 1,000 hectares were burned.

However, the figures, released by state management agencies, are believed to be unreliable. The actual figures about the deforested areas could be much higher.

In 2007-2012, nearly 130,000 hectares of forests in the Central Highlands “disappeared.” This included 107,000 hectares of natural forest, 22,000 planted forest. This means that 25,700 hectares were eliminated each year.

The central region and Central Highlands are the localities that witnessed the sharpest fall in the forest area. The forests have been “cleared away” to give place to hydropower plants and rubber growing areas.

In the last five years, the provinces in the Central Highlands granted licenses to 700 forestry projects, covering an area of 216,000 hectares, including the 100,000 hectares for rubber plantation.

In the central region, after every big flood, hundreds of logs of precious wood were seen drifting to the lowland from the riverheads. In September, October and November 2013, the people in Quang Nam and Quang Ngai called for each other and went “fishing” wood on the rivers.

What happened in the old jungles on the riverheads? The floods gave the answer: old and high trees were chopped down, left in the forests, waiting to be carried away and sold for money.

The forest damage happened in the capacity city of Hanoi as well, where the small forest area (24,500 hectares in 7 districts and county towns) were put under the strict guarding by the forest rangers, local authorities and local people.

According to the Hanoi Forest Ranger Unit, 29 forest fire cases happened in 2013, which burned 31 hectares of the production and protective forests.

Just within one month, from September 20 to October 25, seven forest fire cases happened in Soc Son district alone, burning 10 hectares of forest.

The latest case happened on November 3 at the forest managed by the Soc Son Agriculture and Forestry Company Ltd, which resulted in the disappear of one hectare of pine and arcacia.

People have suffered heavily from the deforestation. More and more big floods, landslide and other terrible natural calamities rush down every year.

The big floods, which repeatedly happened in September in the northwest, killed tens of people. The most serious one in Sa Pa district of Lao Cai province caused a death toll of 10.

The central region in October and November witnessed the historical floods which swept away hundreds of houses and inundated a lot of villages.

Thien Nhien