A plantation forest in Quang Ngai province

 Vietnam now has 14.3 million ha of forest, covering 41.19% of its land area. To achieve its target of 42% forest coverage by 2020, it must fine tune mechanisms and laws to ensure a firm legal foundation for forest protection and development. The revised law on Forest Protection and Development should be approved soon and financial initiatives should be carried out to generate resources for forestry development.

The agro-sector should review the areas of different types of forests such as protective forests, special forests, and plantation forests.  Pham S, Vice Chairman of Lam Dong Province’s People’s Committee, said: “In addition to plantation forests, Lam Dong and other Central Highlands provinces have asked for permission to combine agro-forestry plantation to restore forests, improve biodiversity, and maintain the current areas of agricultural and forest land.”

Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung told the forestry sector: “Forest planning and development should be associated with restructuring of the forestry sector. Provinces should identify and invest in their staple forestry products. Forest protection should match climate change adaptation, tourism development, cultural protection, resettlement of residents, and living conditions. We don’t trade-off economic development and deforestation.”

The National Target Program on Sustainable Forestry Development until 2020 aims to raise the annual average forestry production to 5.5 or 6% and forest coverage to 42%, and earn 8.5 billion USD from wood furniture and forestry product export. The program hopes to generate 25 million jobs, and improve the lives of people depend on forests.