Conference on Implementation of Decree No. 91/2024/ND-CP of the Government

Overview of the conference

Decree No. 91/2024/ND-CP was issued to specify the provisions of the Forestry Law assigned to the Government to detail and guide the implementation of the Law; at the same time, adjust a number of current regulations to resolve practical difficulties, supplement new regulations that have been tested in practice; contribute to increasing income for organizations, households, individuals, and communities participating in forest protection and development; contribute to perfecting the legal system on forestry; create a legal basis for implementing the Vietnam Forestry Development Strategy for the period 2021-2030, with a vision to 2050.

Regarding some of the main contents amended and supplemented by Decree No. 91/2024/ND-CP, Mr. Tran Quang Bao, Director of the Department of Forestry, said that the Decree amended and supplemented a number of articles of Decree No. 156/2018/ND-CP dated November 16, 2018 of the Government detailing the implementation of a number of articles of the Forestry Law. In particular: 1) Supplementing regulations on increasing and decreasing the area of ​​special-use forests and protection forests; changing the type of special-use forests; on criteria and procedures for adjusting the functional zoning of special-use forests. 2) Managing ecotourism , resort and entertainment activities in forests. 3) Adjusting the area of ​​special-use forests and protection forests. 4) Forest allocation, forest leasing, forest type conversion. 5) Changing the purpose of forest use to other purposes. 6) Infrastructure works for forest protection and development. 7) Payment for forest environmental services, forest recovery, decision to change forest use purpose.

Director of the Forestry Department Tran Quang Bao speaks at the conference

Speaking at the conference, Deputy Minister Nguyen Quoc Tri said: In order to properly and effectively manage and exploit 15.8 million hectares of forestry land, of which the forest area is more than 14.8 million hectares, to date, competent authorities have issued 65 legal documents in the field of forestry, including: 1 Law, 16 Decrees, the rest are Circulars and Decisions of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development .

Decree No. 156/2018/ND-CP has created important changes in forestry development, resolving many practical difficulties related to the implementation of forest management regulations, forest allocation, forest leasing, forest use purpose conversion, forest recovery, forest environmental service payment policies; actively contributing to forest management, protection and development, ecological environment protection, climate change response; contributing to job creation and income improvement for people in the midland and mountainous areas. However, after more than 3 years of implementation, some regulations in Decree No. 156/2018/ND-CP have revealed shortcomings and limitations such as: There are no regulations on adjusting the area and functional zoning of special-use forests, adjusting the area of ​​protective forests or changing types between special-use forests;

There are no specific regulations on establishing, appraising, and approving ecotourism, resort, and entertainment projects; areas for construction of facilities serving ecotourism, resort, and entertainment business in forests; and selection of organizations and individuals to rent forest environments;

Current laws stipulate procedures for forest allocation and forest leasing in a unified and synchronous manner with land allocation and land leasing. However, implementation in practice is very difficult due to the lack of uniformity in administrative procedures between land allocation, forest allocation, land leasing and forest leasing; regulations on the authority to decide on policies to change forest use purposes are still inadequate and have not resolved all problems arising in practice;

There is no list of industrial production facilities using water from forests; regulations on the scope of influence to determine ecotourism, resort and entertainment service businesses located outside the forest must pay for forest environmental services; regulations on coordinating forest environmental service fees from hydropower production facilities in inter-provincial basins are not really reasonable;...

Based on the above issues, it is necessary to develop a Decree amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree No. 156/2018/ND-CP.

Deputy Minister Nguyen Quoc Tri speaks at the conference

According to Deputy Minister Nguyen Quoc Tri, Decree No. 91/2024/ND-CP takes effect immediately upon issuance (July 18, 2024). This is a decree with a very wide scope of application, diverse related subjects, many contents and many difficult contents.

The Deputy Minister hopes that the decree will soon resolve the regulations that are lacking in practice and not suitable for forestry, so that forestry can contribute more to sustainable socio-economic and environmental development.

Highly agreeing with the promulgation and early implementation of Decree No. 91 to remove difficulties and obstacles in the forestry sector, delegates attending the conference requested the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to soon issue guiding documents to clarify the decentralization and delegation of authority in converting forest use areas; deciding on changing forest use purposes; forest-related projects such as: Forest type conversion, ecotourism, forest environmental services, selling carbon credits...

Minister Le Minh Hoan concluded the conference.

Concluding the conference, Minister Le Minh Hoan affirmed that Decree 91 is a breakthrough, removing many difficulties in forest management and use, thereby creating multi-purpose value of this resource. The Minister hopes that this will be an opportunity to open a new chapter to "open the forest" and to do this, localities with forests need to open a new thinking space, in which forest owners and forest management boards need to change from management thinking style to governance thinking to do business under the forest canopy, creating many values ​​from the forest, creating jobs and livelihoods for people.../.

Source: https://www.mard.gov.vn/Pages/hoi-nghi-trien-khai-nghi-dinh-so-91-2024-nd-cp-cua-chinh-phu.aspx