Focus on investigating and updating forest status

Urgent task

Khanh Hoa Forest Products One Member Co., Ltd. is a large forest owner, assigned by the State to manage more than 41,184 hectares. Of which, the forestry land area is nearly 41,070 hectares (with more than 32,000 hectares of natural forest and planted forest), the unmeasured forestry land area is more than 105 hectares and non- agricultural land is more than 9.2 hectares. According to the company's leaders, the current status of forests and forest land in the company's forest area was investigated and inventoried in 2016, updated in 2017 and is no longer consistent with the current reality. In addition, the company is facing difficulties related to the area of production forest land that has been encroached upon by people many years ago. The forest survey in the province aims to accurately assess and update the current status of forests and forest land, creating conditions for state management agencies and forest owners to manage, use and invest in protecting and developing forests in accordance with the current status of managed forest land.

Staff of Cam Lam - Cam Ranh - Khanh Son Protective Forest Management Board reviewed the natural forest area under the management unit's forest area.

Through discussions with the leaders of the Cam Lam - Cam Ranh - Khanh Son Protective Forest Management Board and a number of other forest owners, we learned that in order to improve the effectiveness of forest management and protection, and increase the forest cover rate, every year, functional agencies and forest owners in the province focus on updating forest developments. In addition, every week and every month, forest owners also coordinate with specialized agencies to review satellite images to monitor and promptly detect locations with suspected forest changes. At the same time, they increase the collection of information from people about illegal deforestation, exploitation, encroachment of forests and forest land to organize inspection, verification, prevention and strict handling according to regulations. However, the current status of forests and forest land of the managing units has fluctuated a lot compared to previous forest survey and inventory data. To have an accurate database on the current status, forest reserves, and carbon reserves from forests of forest owners and local authorities, forest surveys are essential.

Mr. Nguyen Danh - Head of the Forestry Sub-Department said: Implementing the Forestry Law and the work of planning for sustainable forestry development, the Provincial People's Committee has issued Decision No. 200/2025 approving the outline and budget estimate for implementing forest survey tasks in the province to determine the area, forest reserves, carbon reserves and conduct forest change assessments, update forest data to serve the management, planning and rational use of forest resources; as a basis for developing forestry development policies and livelihoods for people living near forests; contributing to improving the effectiveness of state management in the forestry sector, ensuring the goal of sustainable forestry development...

Focus on implementation

Currently, the whole province has nearly 400,115 hectares meeting the criteria to become forests, including more than 325,131 hectares of natural forests and nearly 74,984 hectares of planted forests; The province's forest coverage rate reached 46.83%, an increase of 0.21% compared to the end of 2024. This forest investigation task was deployed in localities of the former Khanh Hoa province (localities of the former Ninh Thuan province were deployed before. According to the representative of the contractor consortium of the South Central and Central Highlands Forest Investigation and Planning Sub-Institute - Center for Remote Sensing and Information Technology, from now until November 15, the contractor consortium will coordinate with forest owners and localities to carry out forest investigation tasks in the province. To implement early, the contractor consortium has established 2 groups to coordinate with relevant units to carry out forest investigation tasks; arrange the tasks scientifically to avoid the impact of rainy season weather on the implementation of forest investigation tasks. In addition, maximum application of information technology to serve forest investigation work, using drones to check forest changes, the current status of forest areas to have the most accurate data.

According to Mr. Tran Ngoc Hieu - Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Environment, the results of this forest survey will be the basis for the province to effectively manage and use forests; it is important data to propose sustainable forestry development policies to contribute to the implementation of socio -economic development goals and adaptation to climate change. Therefore, the Department of Agriculture and Environment requests relevant departments, branches, units and local authorities to closely coordinate, provide complete information, and create favorable conditions for this forest survey. The construction unit needs to carry out the survey seriously, scientifically, objectively, ensuring the right progress and quality; the survey data must be close to the current status of forests in the province...

Representatives of some forest owners hope that the construction unit needs to coordinate closely with forest owners and local authorities to conduct forest surveys to achieve the best results, accurately reflecting the current state of forests in the province. The data from forest surveys needs to be shared and provided to forest owners to carry out more effective management. The units hope that the results of this forest survey will be an important database to help solve existing problems, especially the overlap of forest land of forest owners and people's farming land; people encroaching on forest land of forest owners...

HAI LANG

Source: https://baokhanhhoa.vn/kinh-te/202509/tap-trung-dieu-tra-cap-nhat-hien-trang-rung-d863c38/