Promoting forest certification and large timber plantation

On the morning of November 7, Nong thon ngay nay/Dan Viet Newspaper coordinated with the National Agricultural Extension Center to organize an online discussion on the topic "Improving the value chain of raw material forests", aiming to create a forum to remove obstacles, create more favorable conditions for developing raw material areas of planted forests in the direction of multi-value, promoting sustainable wood exports.

In recent years, Vietnam's forest area has been quite stable, fluctuating around 14.6-14.7 million hectares. This confirms that the Government, localities as well as the social community pay great attention to forest protection associated with the development of planted forests.

Mr. Vu Thanh Nam, Head of Forest Use Department, Department of Forestry (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) said that the forest area has been increasing rapidly in recent times; to achieve this result is thanks to the comprehensive implementation of comprehensive solutions from the Government, Central, local authorities, to the people, contributing to achieving forest coverage. In addition, the allocation of land and forests has been implemented very effectively, the forests not only have owners, but also create conditions for people to grow forests to consume the products they grow, contributing to increasing the forest coverage to achieve the set target. In addition, there are forest environment policies, policies to plant 5 million hectares of new forests, 5-year sustainable forestry policies, all of these policies have contributed to accelerating the speed of forest planting; the consumption of planted forest wood has so far reached 20 million cubic meters of planted forest wood consumed, providing wood materials for effective export.

Sharing the same view, Mr. Nguyen Van Dien, Head of Information and Digital Transformation Department, Forestry Department (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) said that the forest area is increasing very rapidly, to achieve this result is thanks to the leadership and direction of the Government, National Assembly; the participation of ministries, departments, branches, and the contribution of more than 6,000 wood processing enterprises.

Meanwhile, regarding the issuance of sustainable forest certificates, Mr. Tran Lam Dong, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Forestry Science Institute, said that Vietnam is a country that has approached forest certification early, since 2006, Vietnam has been granted sustainable forest certification. However, currently, the forests managed by local people are still limited and small-scale. In 2017, when the Forestry Law was issued, the area of certified forests was still modest, reaching about 250,000 hectares. To promote implementation, in 2018, the Government approved the Project on Sustainable Forest Management and Forest Certification, in which the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development was assigned to develop the National Forest Certification System (VFCS). The VFCS system is built according to the standards and requirements of the PEFC International Forest Certification System, recognized by PEFC, allowed to use labels and operated since 2019. To date, the whole country has about 435,000 hectares of certified forests, of which 150,000 hectares are VFCS/PEFC forest certified.

According to Mr. Tran Lam Dong, Vietnam is the world's fifth largest exporter of forest products and wood, so ensuring sustainable forest certification is increasingly important. To bring more products to the US and other demanding markets, sustainable forest certification is required to increase the value of forest products and increase income for forest growers.

Analyzing the difficulties and obstacles in large timber plantations, Mr. Vu Thanh Nam, Head of Forest Use Department, Department of Forestry, said that large timber plantations not only bring higher economic benefits to households, but also help reduce erosion, contribute to environmental protection and combat climate change. The effectiveness of large timber forests compared to small timber forests has been confirmed, but this type of forest has not yet developed proportionally.

Further clarifying the difficulties and challenges in current forest protection work, Mr. Nguyen Van Dien, Head of Information and Digital Transformation Department, Forest Protection Department said: Currently, there are many difficulties in forest protection management. Although we have had many achievements in forest protection, the number of cases as well as damages each year are lower than the previous year according to statistics of the Forest Protection Department. However, there are still cases of deforestation and forest fires that affect forest quality as well as the assets of the people and the country.

With experience from one of the localities that has achieved many achievements in developing large timber forests and linking afforestation, sharing at the Seminar, Mr. Ha Sy Dong, Standing Vice Chairman of Quang Tri Provincial People's Committee said that in the total of 23,400 hectares of FSC large timber forests that Quang Tri has, they are mainly concentrated in forestry companies including: Ben Hai, Trieu Hai and Duong 9 with about 17,000 hectares, the remaining area is in households and cooperatives. Quang Tri is also the first province in Vietnam to be granted FSC international certification for natural forests. Accordingly, 2,145 hectares of natural forests in 5 villages in the communes of Huong Phung, Huong Son, Huong Viet, Huong Linh of Huong Hoa district were granted FSC international certification for ecosystem services on carbon storage and absorption in October 2022, with storage capacity in these forest areas of about 350,000 tons of CO2 and annual absorption of about 7,000 tons of CO2. This result provides opportunities for community forest owners to access funding sources and voluntary payments for ecosystem services initiated by the FSC International Forest Stewardship Council globally.

According to Mr. Dong, this result has had an impact on the implementation of the sustainable forestry development plan in Quang Tri, promoting the province to approve the production development plan associated with processing and consumption of tung oil in the period of 2023-2026, with a vision to 2030, with the goal of producing about 4,000 tons of tung seeds, equivalent to a commercial value of about 50 billion VND/year for farmers in mountainous areas.

Regarding the content of opportunities from planting large timber forests, Mr. Vu Thanh Nam, Head of Forest Use Department, Department of Forestry said that there are many mechanisms and policies to support forest growers such as supporting 8 million VND/ha for people to plant large timber forests. Including 5-year plans such as in the period from 2015 to 2020 or from 2020 to 2025... Currently, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has also submitted to the Government to issue a number of policies with loans for large timber forest growers to develop the economy more effectively.

Pointing out some current issues of forest productivity degradation, Mr. Tran Lam Dong, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Forestry Science Institute, suggested that in terms of forestry tree varieties for afforestation, in addition to acacia and eucalyptus, which are easy to grow and familiar, we also have great potential in the field of non-timber forest products, such as medicinal plants and other valuable timber trees. Implementing the policy of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on economic development under the forest canopy, or the multi-use value of forests, the Institute has also conducted many studies in this field. The Institute also recommends that people need to have knowledge of the terrain and refer to the Institute's instructions on varieties and planting techniques to participate in economic development under the forest canopy.

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