Two breakthrough driving forces in Tay Yen Tu land

Exploiting potential

Recently, we visited the 3-hectare, 4-year-old hybrid acacia forest of Ms. Hoang Thi Hoa's family in Thong Nhat village. Clapping her hand on the large tree trunk in front of her, Ms. Hoa said that with the current price of wood, after 1 forest planting cycle (5 years), after deducting production costs, she earns about 90 million VND/ha. In addition to planting forests, Ms. Hoa and her husband cultivate rice and raise 10 pigs and more than 300 commercial poultry/year. During the off-season, she works part-time at wood processing factories in the commune; her husband clears land and takes care of forests for hire for households with large areas, earning enough income to cover daily living expenses. "Income from economic forest planting is like savings, spent on big things like building houses and buying expensive items. Having an economic forest will give you a stable source of income," Ms. Hoa said.

Going to Tay Yen Tu festival.

Not far from Ms. Hoa's family's eucalyptus forest is Mr. Dinh Manh Huy's wood peeling workshop. From afar, you can hear the sound of a car "grabbing" wood, the sound of a peeling machine rumbling and bustling. The workshop is more than 1 hectare wide, located next to Provincial Road 291 (connecting the center of Yen Dinh commune with Tay Yen Tu commune), which is very convenient for purchasing, transporting raw materials and selling peeled wood panels. Mr. Huy shared that Tay Yen Tu, as well as the communes of Son Dong district, was previously the largest area of planted forest wood materials in the province. Taking advantage of this, in 2023, he joined forces with a friend in the commune to invest in a wood processing workshop with a total cost of more than 1 billion VND (not including the cost of renting production premises). Currently, the wood processing workshop consumes about 35 tons of fresh wood/day (equivalent to 35 ^m3 of round wood); the average revenue is about 1.4 billion VND/month, creating jobs for 10 workers with an income of 350-500 thousand VND/person/workday.

"In order to make a breakthrough in economic development, the local Party Committee and government have set many goals, which are to create a breakthrough in the development of trade - services, industry, construction, tourism; coordinate to quickly implement industrial cluster projects, expand investment in eco-tourism, community tourism, develop culture, arts, sports , entertainment; focus on experiential tourism to exploit the advantages of the unique cultural values of the commune... In particular, the commune focuses on two key areas: developing forest economy and spiritual - ecological tourism" - Comrade Le Duc Thang, Secretary of the Party Committee of Tay Yen Tu commune.

Tay Yen Tu commune has 11 villages, a population of more than 10,600 people; a natural area of nearly 133 ^km2 , of which there are more than 10,000 hectares of forestry land, accounting for about 80% of the total agricultural land area of the commune. Mr. Nguyen Minh Hai, Head of Son Dong Inter-commune Forest Protection Department, said that the commune has thousands of well-off households thanks to the forest economy. In just the first 7 months of this year, the whole commune planted more than 750 hectares (an increase of 220 hectares compared to the whole year of 2024); harvested more than 516 hectares of forest, with an output of more than 63,600 m3 of wood. The estimated forestry production value for the whole year is more than 118.9 billion VND. To exploit advantages, increase value and revenue from production forests, many households and businesses have invested tens of billions of VND to build 18 wood processing facilities in the commune. On average, each year these establishments process and sell about 285 thousand tons of wood of all kinds, including wood chips, peeled wood panels, sawn wood panels, etc., with revenue of hundreds of billions of VND. In addition to afforestation, Tay Yen Tu people also grow medicinal herbs and non-timber forest trees with high income such as: ginseng, doi, chestnut, yam, morinda, gardenia, etc. Developing the forest economy and processing forest products is creating a sustainable source of income for local people.

Tourist highlights

Along with the hill and forest economy, Tay Yen Tu commune has Tay Yen Tu spiritual - ecological tourist area with many unique architectural works, bearing the mark of Buddhist history and culture. Notable are the Trinh pagoda, Ha pagoda, Trung pagoda, Thuong pagoda and Dong pagoda systems, located independently on mountain tops with ancient architecture, with a cable car system to help visitors move easily. The highlight of the architectural complex here is the Hoa Nghiem bell tower with red painted columns and majestic, towering yellow roof. The tower is 36 m high, 3 floors, each floor has an area of 700 - 900 m2; 36 roofs, 40 columns, of which 4 main columns symbolize the 4 seasons Spring - Summer - Autumn - Winter, 1.5 m in diameter, 28 m high. The remaining columns have a diameter of 0.9 - 1.2 m, height from 7 to 17 m. In early July, the World Heritage Committee (UNESCO) recognized the Yen Tu - Vinh Nghiem, Con Son, Kiep Bac Monuments and Landscape Complex as a World Cultural Heritage.

Officers of Son Dong Inter-commune Forest Protection Department visited a production forest model of a household in Mau village, Tay Yen Tu commune.

In addition, other tourist attractions in the area such as Vo Cuc bridge, typical religious and historical architectural complexes from the Tran to Nguyen dynasties such as: Am Vai Pagoda, Ho Bac Pagoda, Dong Ri Pagoda, Hon Thap and many other community tourist attractions such as: Ba Tia tourist site (with Ba Tia waterfall), Ban Mau tourist site (with strong Dao ethnic culture), Dong Thong tourist site attract thousands of tourists every year.

Comrade Le Duc Thang, Secretary of the Party Committee of Tay Yen Tu commune, said that in order to make a breakthrough in economic development, the local Party Committee and government have set many goals, which are to create a breakthrough in the development of trade-services, industry, construction, and tourism; coordinate to quickly implement industrial cluster projects, expand investment in eco-tourism, community tourism, develop culture, arts, sports, and entertainment; focus on experiential tourism to exploit the advantages of the unique cultural values of the commune... In particular, the commune focuses on two key areas: Developing forest economy and spiritual-ecological tourism.

In order to realize the goal, along with technical support for intensive cultivation to increase forest productivity and forest certification so that local planted forest wood products can be exported to all countries, the commune focuses on attracting investment in building infrastructure for Thanh Son Industrial Cluster. Prioritizing attracting projects for deep wood production and processing into this industrial cluster to increase the value of economic forests. At the same time, the commune focuses on attracting investment in building and rapidly developing general services and professional services; encouraging services in the area such as: Transportation, construction, forest product processing, medicinal plant production, agriculture, especially eco-tourism and community.

Mr. Ngo Chi Vinh, interim Chairman of the Provincial Union of Science and Technology Associations, said that at this Commune-level Party Congress, term 2025-2030, Tay Yen Tu commune was the only unit to propose the Provincial Union of Science and Technology Associations to organize a conference to review, advise, and contribute ideas to the draft political report to be submitted to the Commune Party Congress. Thereby, Mr. Vinh recognized that, along with harmonious development in all fields, to create a breakthrough and complete the goals set by the Congress, Tay Yen Tu commune needs to maximize the advantages of the World Heritage in the area by inviting travel businesses to build tours and tourist routes; build service infrastructure, promote, attract tourists, etc. Thereby creating resources for Tay Yen Tu to complete the criteria for developing into a ward before 2030.

With the right orientation and effective solutions to exploit available potential, in the near future, Tay Yen Tu will become an attractive destination for investors as well as tourists from all over the world.

Article and photos: The Dai

Source: https://baobacninhtv.vn/hai-dong-luc-but-pha-o-vung-dat-tay-yen-tu-postid425447.bbg