During a conference on the protection and development of the forests in Gia Lai Province, it was revealed that the central highlands has lost approximately 130,000 hectares forest over the past five years.
Deforestation in Gia Lai
The conference, held on September 21, showed that forests in central highlands is shrinking, losing about 26,000 hectares each year, adversely affecting the daily lives of residents in many localities. During the period between 2007 to 2011 more than 100,000 hectares of natural forest and 20,000 hectares of planted forest were lost.
In 2011, the forest volume in the central highlands only accounted for 1.8 million hectares, or 32.4% forest coverage.
Along with forest invasive species and illegal logging, the main cause for the problem has been improper land use.
Numerous violations were found when forestland, poor in nutrients, was converted to rubber plantations, with many using land that had nutrient-rich soil. Also, many of the owners of these large plots of land have proven incapable of managing them.
Ha Cong Tuan, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, said, "The remaining natural forests will be transfered to the committee in charge of forestry protection and the special-use forestland can be expanded. If forestry companies can't protect the land, we cannot keep them."
At the conference, many solutions were proposed, such as strengthening management of local forestry, state forestry farms and forestry companies; forest exploitation and timber processing facilities. There is also a need for research into how to recover forests.
Other solutions were also mentioned, such as suspending natural forestland exploitation next year and reassessing the projects of 49 forestry companies. Only seven companies that have been implementing sustainable forestry plans would be allowed maintain their current operations.