Improving the quality of planted forests | Gia Lai Online Newspaper

It's only the beginning of summer, but irrigation and hydroelectric reservoirs across the country have already fallen below their dead water levels. Water flow in rivers and streams is also severely deficient. A severe water shortage is predicted for this summer, leading to a series of environmental and social consequences.

For many years, despite repeated warnings from experts about deforestation and reforestation with acacia trees, the area of acacia forests has continued to expand, inversely proportional to the shrinking area of natural forests.

For a long time, acacia trees were considered a "poverty alleviation crop," ignoring warnings from experts. As a result, today, whether in the rainy or dry season, the people themselves are bearing the terrible consequences, even paying with their lives, due to deforestation and the planting of acacia trees.

According to the 2021 national forest status report by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the total forested land area, including planted forests that have not yet closed the canopy, is 14,745,201 hectares, of which natural forests account for 10,171,757 hectares and planted forests account for 4,573,444 hectares. The forested land area that meets the criteria for calculating the national forest cover rate is 13,923,108 hectares, with a forest cover rate of 42.02%.

Looking back one year, the area of planted forests and forested land that meets the criteria for calculating the national forest cover rate in 2021 increased compared to 2020, but the area of natural forests in 2021 decreased compared to 2020, and naturally, the area of planted forests increased compared to 2020.

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This shows that, despite the government's declaration of "forest closure" in 2016, the area of natural forests continues to shrink; the quality of forests and their water retention capacity are decreasing. Evidence of this risk is the increasingly serious situation of flash floods and landslides during the rainy season and the depletion of water resources in rivers and streams during the dry season.

Therefore, to minimize the risks from future floods and droughts, the Government should implement strong, strategic policies and measures to quickly reduce the area of acacia forests and rapidly replace them with large timber trees to improve forest quality and increase the forest's water retention capacity.

Reducing the area planted with acacia trees and replacing them with large timber trees in planted forests should not just be a matter of "calling for action," but must be implemented through administrative orders, laws, and scientifically planned and executed according to regulations, considering scale, area, and species, while avoiding simultaneous harvesting to ensure minimum water and soil retention areas.

It can be said that this is the opportune time to make a "boost" for the transformation of both the "quantity" and "quality" of forests in Vietnam, because in 2025, Vietnam will operate a pilot carbon credit exchange, moving towards organizing and operating an official carbon credit exchange in 2028, as well as regulating the connection and exchange of carbon credits domestically with regional and global carbon markets.

In early May, AstraZeneca announced a new $50 million investment in Vietnam as part of its global AZ Forest program. Over the next five years, it is projected that 22.5 million trees will be planted on more than 30,500 hectares of land to restore forests and landscapes in Vietnam, fostering biodiversity and providing sustainable livelihoods for over 17,000 farming households.