Cam Lo strengthens management, protection and expansion of forest area

Cam Lo district has 20,099 hectares of forest and forestry planning land, of which 18,954 hectares are forest land. Recently, Cam Lo district People's Committee has directed functional agencies, local authorities, and forest owners to strengthen forest protection measures, strictly manage forest areas and forestry land, promote forest development; prevent hot spots of deforestation and forest encroachment and promptly and strictly handle violations of forestry and land laws in the area.

Planted wood is prepared for processing in Cam Lo - Photo: D.T

In order to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of state management of forest protection and development, every year, Cam Lo district focuses on perfecting the steering committee of the sustainable forestry development program at all levels, assigning clear tasks, reviewing and supplementing plans for forest protection management, forest fire prevention and fighting in line with reality. Strengthening propaganda to raise awareness and responsibility of cadres, party members and people of all walks of life in forest management and protection, land management, and handling illegal deforestation and encroachment of forest land.

Focusing on coordination between military forces, police, forest rangers, and local authorities in forest protection, forest fire prevention and fighting as well as strengthening coordination between agencies in the district-level internal affairs sector has brought about many positive results. The entire existing natural forest area is basically well managed and protected, there are no hot spots of deforestation or encroachment of natural forests for afforestation; forest fires are detected early, and forces are mobilized to extinguish them promptly, thus affecting forest resources insignificantly.

Forest development work has been implemented with attention by all levels, sectors and forest owners. People have focused on selecting forestry tree varieties of origin, investing in intensive cultivation to improve productivity and quality of planted forests, contributing to bringing forest cover to 51.1% in 2023.

Currently, Cam Lo district is directing relevant agencies to coordinate in reviewing and integrating information on forests and forest land into provincial planning; strictly controlling the conversion of forest use purposes to other purposes. In 2023, there will be 2 new groups of projects in the district related to the conversion of forest use purposes, which are the resettlement area project serving the Van Ninh - Cam Lo section project of the North - South Eastern Expressway construction project in the period of 2021 - 2025; the Cam Hieu Industrial Cluster technical infrastructure investment project. In the district, there is no situation of taking advantage of the conversion of forest use purposes to illegally destroy forests.

Along with performing well the state management of forest protection and development, Cam Lo district focuses on directing the improvement of the efficiency of forestry land use and decentralizing state management responsibilities at the commune level according to the provisions of the Forestry Law.

For natural forests, in 2023, the Provincial Sustainable Forestry Development Program supported 100,000 VND/ha, the North Central Region Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Payment Program supported 126,000 VND/ha, with a total cost of 264 million VND. For production forests, in 2023, the whole district will exploit about 2,200 hectares, with an estimated income of 220 billion VND.

After exploitation, people are encouraged to replant intensive forests, large timber forests, using quality seed sources suitable for the land such as hybrid acacia BV10, BV33, etc. to increase productivity and quality of planted forests. Implement joint ventures and investment linkages in forest planting and forest product processing between enterprises with financial and technical potential and forestry production cooperatives and households to promote forestry production development, exploit and effectively use the potential of forestry land.

Regarding the prevention of encroachment and forest land encroachment, currently, Cam Lo district is actively coordinating with relevant departments and branches and directing the People's Committees of communes to focus on resolving the disputed forest land area between households in Cam Tuyen and Cam Chinh communes and the Road 9 Forestry One Member Co., Ltd.; the forest land area is handed over by organizations to the locality for management, but in reality, most of the area has been illegally encroached and occupied before the handover.

The District People's Committee has actively directed relevant sectors and localities to strictly manage the land fund received and transferred from the Road 9 Forestry One Member Co., Ltd., and at the same time widely announce the declaration and registration of land use on mass media, classify local forest land owners, and develop a land allocation plan to submit to competent authorities for approval to ensure fairness and reasonableness.

It can be affirmed that the effective implementation of policies, programs and projects to protect and develop forests, ensuring livelihoods in Cam Lo district has limited the situation of encroachment, forest encroachment and law violations by people within the forest boundaries, especially protective forests and special-use forests. Forest areas and forest land have been organized and managed in accordance with the planning approved by competent authorities. The effectiveness of management and use of forestry land has been increasingly improved, and the lives of people working in the forest have been increasingly improved.

Up to now, there have been no hot spots of deforestation and illegal logging. This is the basis for Cam Lo district to continue directing the strengthening of the role and responsibility of forest owners in managing and protecting the assigned forest area and forest land; mobilizing many resources to support the community, households, and people living near the forest to increase income, improve life, and limit the situation of encroachment and forest damage in the coming time.

Khanh Ngoc

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