According to Nguyen Nhu Viet, head of the Lam Vien Protection Forest Management Board, September marks the start of the rainy season, when forest rangers in Dalat rush to plant pine trees on bare hillsides.
Authorities have stepped up patrols to protect Dalat's pine forests (Photo: Minh Hau).
"In Dalat, pine trees are not simply forestry trees but have become a distinctive form of urban greenery, managed under particularly strict regulations," Viet said.
Rapid urban development is placing growing pressure on pine forests. In some suburban areas, people continue to secretly poison or cut down pine trees to occupy forest land.
Viet said his unit is responsible for more than 22,300 hectares of forest and forestry land across five wards: Xuan Huong - Dalat, Lam Vien - Dalat, Lang Biang - Dalat, Cam Ly - Dalat and Xuan Truong - Dalat. Nearly 19,000 hectares of this area consists of protection forests serving environmental and landscape conservation purposes.
Visitors stroll beneath pine trees along Xuan Huong Lake in Dalat (Photo: Minh Hau).
Efforts to protect the forests have produced positive results. In 2024, authorities recorded 68 forestry violations affecting nearly four hectares of land and resulting in damage to 180 pine trees. The number fell to 48 cases in 2025, affecting nearly two hectares and damaging 44 trees. In the first six months of 2026, only 21 violations were recorded across the area, affecting 16 forest trees.
A forest ranger spoke of the challenges of the job, saying the vast area under management and limited manpower made patrols extremely difficult. In areas bordering residential land, some households deliberately plant fruit trees and industrial crops, gradually encroaching on pine-covered hills.
To preserve the mountain city's landscape, authorities in Dalat's wards have closely coordinated with forest management units to implement a range of measures. Where forest land has been encroached upon, authorities immediately replant trees after handling the violations.
For pine trees that must be removed to make way for transport infrastructure or public works, local authorities strictly enforce regulations requiring replacement planting.
Nguyen Hau, deputy chairman of the People's Committee of Xuan Huong - Dalat Ward, said that under Lam Dong's urban tree management regulations, when pine trees have to be felled for public purposes or because they pose a risk of falling, local authorities must implement a replacement planting plan at a strict ratio: five new trees for every tree removed.
A winding, picturesque road runs beneath cool green pine canopies in Dalat (Photo: Minh Hau).
Alongside forest protection efforts, local authorities have also launched large-scale campaigns to green bare and degraded hillsides.
In Lam Vien - Dalat Ward, which manages more than 1,400 hectares of pine forest, chairman Nguyen Hoang Phuc said the locality planted 100,000 new trees in 2025 and more than 8,000 additional trees in the first six months of 2026.
Similarly, in Lang Biang - Dalat Ward, local authorities have worked with Bidoup - Nui Ba National Park to completely reclaim encroached forest land and successfully replant nearly 35,000 pine trees.
