Thuy Dung
Nguyen Ba Ngai, deputy general director of Vietnam Forestry Department under the ministry, affirmed that after three years in operation, forest-protection policies have created stable funding for forest development. It also helps many forest dependent people including minority groups settle down and improve their living standard in mountainous areas.
As many as 34 provinces and cities nationwide have established Forest Protection and Development Funds. The collected fees had amounted to nearly VND2,850 billion in between 2009-2013, with last year alone seeing service revenue rise to VND1,068 billion.
However, the payment to forest keepers has been modest.
In the two years of 2012-2013, the payment averaged out at over VND200,000 per hectare. Certain provinces paid higher amounts, like Lam Dong with VND350,000 a hectare, Lai Chau with VND298,500, and Kontum VND362,000.
Ha Cong Tuan, deputy minister of agriculture, said that despite the large fees collected, forest keepers have not received the adequate payment, let alone the slow disbursement.
In 2012, the forest environment service fund had VND271 billion of backlog. In 2013, the disbursement rate was less than 45%, as almost VND500 billion was not delivered to forest keepers who are the poor living in remote and mountainous areas.
The fund has come mainly from hydropower industry while other industries using forest resources have contributed little.
“For example, eco-tourism facilities contribute only a few billions. There should be more specific regulations to supervise those businesses since it is a waste of resources to allow only one or two enterprises to make use of the forest,” Tuan emphasized.
The conference participants pointed out that a lack of fund has hampered the checking of forests, so it is difficult to establish who are real forest keepers. To tackle this issue, authorities will be conducting a forest investigation during 2016, the department said.
The department noted that statistics from two provinces taking pilot investigation, which are Bac Kan and Ha Tinh, showed that there are 40,000 and 20,000 forest keepers respectively. Details about these keepers can be easily checked on the department’s website. The number of forest keepers with complete data will be one million in 2016, making payment much easier, said the department.
Forest environmental service providers include forest keepers that are households, individuals, communities and organizations with forests entrusted by or leased from the State.
The users include clean water producers and suppliers, tourism enterprises, and hydropower and aquaculture firms that benefit directly from forests’ natural resources and landscapes.
Đăng ký: VietNam News