VietNamNet Bridge - Local authorities and investors who are developing road and hydropower projects have promised to plant forests to offset the trees they fell. However, they have failed to keep their word.


The developer of the Tri An Hydropower Plant in Dong Nai province, which built the plant 30 years, said that only 2,000 hectares of forestland would be cleared. 

However, in fact, 10,000 hectares of the special-use forest have been cut down.

Tri An was a big project, but the deforestation could have been controlled. 

What will happen with smaller construction works put under less strict control?

Illegal logging has always been a heady problem in special-use forests and natural sanctuaries. 

Forests are ‘bleeding’ day and night while the forest rangers’ capability is limited while they lack necessary instruments to protect the forests.

However, people commented that forests have been devastated mostly by local officials, not by people. 

Local authorities and investors who are developing road and hydropower projects have promised to plant forests to offset the trees they fell. However, they have failed to keep their word.

Illegal loggers can chop down several trees only, while thousands of trees could fall because of officials’ signatures.

It is estimated that thousands of hectares of special-use forests have been cleared in the last 10 years or more for hydropower plants and other construction works. 

Meanwhile, the planted forest area remains very modest. 

A report of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (MONRE) showed that the seaweed area in Vietnam has reduced by 40-70 percent. 

At the Cua Dai sea in Quang Nam province, the figure is up to 70 percent. It is because local people in coastal localities have encroached on the sea, setting up shrimp ponds and construction worls,

Vietnam, which was once listed among the 10 most diverse biodiversity centers in the world, has been considered by international organizations as a ‘hot spot’ in biodiversity degradation because of economic development activities.

Dao Trong Hung from the Vietnam Science Academy commented that in many cases, investors just ‘drew’ projects to get benefits for themselves, not for economic development. He warned that such projects would lead to excessive natural resource devastation.

When investors persuaded local authorities and competent agencies to allow construction of restaurants and resorts in the pine forest around the Tuyen Lam Lake, a beautiful landscape in the tourist city of Da Lat, they promised to share profits with the community and pay environmental fees to protect the forests. 

However, no one knows how much they paid for the fees or how the fees have been used. 

Meanwhile, the area around the lake has become a business district, while the forest and natural landscapes have been damaged.

“It is easy to devastate, but it will be very difficult to restore the forest,” Che Dinh Ly from the HCM City Environment and Natural Resources Institute warned. 


NLD