Northern provinces planted nearly 100 thousand ha of new forest

On the morning of November 24, in Lao Cai City (Lao Cai province) a conference took place to evaluate the results of implementing coordination regulations between Region I Forest Protection Department and Forest Protection Departments of provinces, cities, and National Parks in the Northern region.

Mr. Tran Van Trien, Director of the Forest Protection Department Region I said, After 3 years of implementing the regulations, the cooperation and mutual support between Region I Forest Protection Department and local Forest Protection Departments has increasingly developed comprehensively. The relationship developed comprehensively in all aspects of the industry's work; with focused, effective solutions from the Branch level to grassroots units, especially coordination in sharing information on suspected natural forest changes, forest fires, and cracking down on deforestation and illegal forest exploitation, especially supporting each other in applying the law.

For National Parks, although coordinated activities have only been implemented for a year, however, the two sides have raised their sense of responsibility and fully implemented the contents of the coordination plan...

Accordingly, the Forest Protection Department of Region I promptly informed and issued 34 documents to the Forest Protection Departments of provinces and cities. The Department requested strengthening8 advisory work for Party Committees and local authorities to effectively implement legal documents and directions of the Party and State for the central ministries and branches in state management and enforcement of forestry laws.

Maintain and exploit information about forest management and protection on communication channels. In the first 10 months of 2023, the above-mentioned forces have updated 110 series of news articles reflecting on deforestation, illegal exploitation and transportation of forest products...promptly contact the localities where the incident occurred to check, verify, and handle the matter quickly and promptly, limiting bad public opinion in forest protection work.

Right from the beginning of the year, the Region I Forest Protection Department coordinated with provincial Forest Protection Departments to synthesize, report, and announce the forest status in 2022; Maintain support and guidance on overcoming errors in updating forest resource developments in 2023 at the request of the Provincial Forest Protection Departments.

Specifically, the Department consulted and answered over 500 phone calls, 100 times of support via Teamviewer, and Ultraview; over 300 exchanges via email, zalo... sẻving civil servants in charge of monitoring and updating forest developments; appointed staff as lecturers to support local Forest Protection Departments in organizing training courses on forest developments.

Region I Forest Protection Department has conducted 44 forecasts and early warnings of forest fire risks and posted them on the website (once a week), providing localities with more reference information channels and promptly developing plans and solutions to prevent forest fires during the dry season.

Coordinating forest patrols, ensuring compliance with forestry laws in the Park area; and supporting monitoring and updating forest developments have brought many practical benefits, and forest security in the garden area is guaranteed.

In particular, as of October 2023, the newly planted forest area will reach 95,185.7 ha. Of which, special-use forest areas are 270 ha, protection forest areas are 956.1 ha and production forest areas are 93,959.6 ha. The area of planted forests being cared for reached 236,576.8 ha; the forest area for regeneration promotion reached 65,630 ha (of which 4,310 ha were newly zoned for regeneration; 61,320 ha are zoned for transitional cultivation; the number of scattered forestry trees is 31,141 thousand trees; the number of forestry seedlings reached 589,309 thousand seedlings of all types).

Notably, there are more and more sustainable forest development models such as in Tuyen Quang, Thai Nguyen, Phu Tho, Lang Son, Yen Bai, Quang Ninh, and Bac Giang provinces...

Mr. Doan Ngoc Than, Director of the Forest Protection Department of Hau Giang province, said that when the province was first established (in 2004), Hau Giang had 2,001 ha of forest. Currently, the province's forested area is 3,794 ha, an increase of nearly 1,800 ha compared to nearly 20 years ago. In addition, Hau Giang province also has a tree planting project in the area, invested by the Investment Project Management Board, with a scale of about 733,000 trees in the area from 2023 - 2024.​