According to the Department of Agriculture and Environment (DARD), from 2020 to present, there have been 53 projects in the province with more than 1,353 hectares of forest land affected by forests. To compensate for this area, project owners are responsible for reforestation. However, the results have not been very positive. After 5 years, only 2 projects had their owners reforestation with an area of 113.5 hectares; 44 projects were selected by project owners to pay money to the Provincial Forest Protection and Development Fund with a total area of over 1,181 hectares; 2 projects with an area of over 4.8 hectares have exceeded the time limit for resubmitting the policy of changing the purpose of forest use to another purpose; 5 projects have not yet fulfilled their obligation to reforest with an area of nearly 54 hectares.
Lack of vacant land
Mr. Nguyen Huu Chien, Director of the Department of Agriculture and Environment, said: The department has issued many documents directing, approving unit prices and guiding project owners to fulfill their obligations to plant replacement forests according to the regulations of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment and the actual conditions of the province. However, the implementation has encountered many obstacles. One of the biggest difficulties is the land fund problem. According to current regulations, the priority of planting replacement forests is on land planned for special-use forests, protection forests and production forests allocated to state-owned enterprises or supporting the planting of large timber forests for households and individuals, but in reality in Lang Son, this is not very favorable.
"For special-use forests, the vacant land that can be planted with forests has been assigned to implement forest planting according to regulations. The remaining vacant land is mainly high mountains, exposed rocks, and traffic is difficult for transporting seedlings and fertilizers. For protective forests, the work of reviewing vacant land is carried out annually, and targets have been assigned to districts for forest planting in places with sufficient conditions; the remaining vacant land is currently scattered, small, located in high mountainous areas, complex terrain, border areas that have not been cleared of bombs and mines, some places are grazing grounds for people's livestock... so there is also a lack of land for replacement forest planting," informed Mr. Nguyen Huu Hung, Head of the Forest Protection Department of Lang Son province.
People of Bac Lang commune, Dinh Lap district take care of acacia forest
Regarding production forest land, the regulation on supporting large timber plantation for households and individuals is entangled with the new regulation on credit support for investment in large timber plantation, making this group ineligible to participate in replacement forest plantation with capital from the provincial Forest Protection and Development Fund. State-owned enterprises under the Vietnam Forestry Corporation are not interested due to the regulation requiring an increase in charter capital when using this source of money.
Records in Loc Binh district show that, like other districts, in the past, the work of reforestation in the area has also encountered many difficulties in finding land funds. The main reason is that the vacant land area for reforestation is still fragmented, small, far from residential areas, mainly located in remote areas with rugged terrain and difficult transportation. In addition, many areas of reforestation are mainly located in complex areas, making it difficult to transport seedlings and fertilizers for reforestation, increasing the cost of transporting seedlings, materials and labor; some areas of poor quality land need to be improved before planting, leading to increased initial costs, which are also major obstacles for this work.
Mr. To Bach, an official of the Department of Agriculture and Environment of Loc Binh district, shared: For the above reasons, from 2020 to now, in Loc Binh, only 2 projects with a total area of 56.3 hectares have been implemented, in Nam Quan and Huu Lan communes, with a direct support fund for participating people of 3.8 billion VND.
Difficulties in land funds have led to a situation where many projects have paid money into the provincial Forest Protection and Development Fund (a total of more than 126 billion VND) but have not yet been able to implement forest planting in practice. Therefore, out of a total of 53 replacement forest planting projects, the province still has 9 projects with an area of 336 hectares and a corresponding amount of more than 33 billion VND still "lying still" in the fund due to the lack of land funds. Thus, up to this point, the provincial Forest Protection and Development Fund still has over 64 billion VND (including care costs in 2024 and the amount not yet handed over to investors to implement replacement forest planting) that cannot be disbursed.
Regulatory issues
Besides the land fund issue, problems in regulations also cause many difficulties for reforestation work.
According to Circular 25/2022/TT-BNNPTNT dated December 30, 2022 of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (now the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) regulating replacement forestation, when changing the purpose of forest use to another purpose, the project owner must pay the replacement forestation fee within 10 days from the date of receipt of the document from the Provincial People's Committee. However, if this deadline is exceeded, despite the written urging, the competent authority has not yet had specific sanctions for late payment, which affects the overall progress.
Another issue is the bidding for labor for replacement forestation under the 2023 Bidding Law. According to the initial guidance, the assignment to local communities to implement only applies to national target programs and public investment programs. This causes many concerns when the land area for replacement forestation is located in villages and hamlets where people have long cultivated. If the winning contractor for labor is a business from another place, it will be difficult to receive cooperation from local people, potentially causing security risks and making inspection and supervision difficult.
In addition, the control of expenditures for replacement forest planting according to Circular 24/2024/TT-BNNPTNT dated December 12, 2024 of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (now the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) amending and supplementing a number of articles of circulars in the forestry sector is also facing difficulties due to the lack of specific instructions on the expenditure control process through the State Treasury. In addition, the regulation on collecting additional unit price differences when changing the forest planting location is not really effective when the investor has been confirmed to have fulfilled the payment obligation at the original locality...
The Director of the Department of Agriculture and Environment of Lang Son said: Faced with the difficulties in reforestation, the Department of Agriculture and Environment of Lang Son province has proactively proposed that the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment consider expanding the scope of this obligation to the land area planned for production forests. This proposal is accompanied by the application of an investment support mechanism similar to Decree 58/2024/ND-CP on investment policies in forestry and credit support for large timber plantation with the hope of exploiting potential land resources from the community. In addition, the amendment of current legal regulations, especially on the deadline for payment of reforestation fees and the addition of strict sanctions for cases of delay or intentional failure to fulfill obligations.
At the same time, the Department of Agriculture and Environment is also synchronously implementing many solutions to gradually remove the "bottlenecks". Specifically, the work of reviewing and carefully evaluating the existing land fund is given top priority, through close coordination with localities to conduct field surveys, classify land according to potential use and develop appropriate afforestation plans for each area. Currently, the allocated area (not yet planted) is undergoing survey and design procedures, bidding... for afforestation is over 281 hectares (Trang Dinh over 128 hectares, Van Lang over 3 hectares, Dinh Lap nearly 120 hectares; Mau Son Special-Use Forest Management Board over 30.5 hectares).
In the coming time, the task of reforestation will continue to be implemented. Although there are still many difficulties and obstacles, with the determination of the authorities at all levels, the active participation of the community and the solutions that have been researched and proposed in a methodical manner, we believe that Lang Son will have more forest areas covered with green, contributing significantly to the sustainable forestry development of the province and the whole country.
Source: https://baolangson.vn/trong-rung-thay-the-kho-khan-bua-vay-5048535.html
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