Kien Giang plants thousands ha coastal protective forest to protect local people

The Mekong Delta province of Kien Giang has planted over 600 ha of coastal protective forest as a green shield to minimise threats from the nature and protect the people’s lives over the past 10 years and continued grow an addition of nearly 3,000 ha of coastal protective forest until 2022.

The move came after a survey, conducted by the provincial Agriculture and Rural Development Department, showed that coastal erosion has occurred continuously in the province over the decade.

As calculations, there has been still 12 points of coastal erosion with a total length of more than 82 km, mainly on the coastal routes of An Bien - An Minh, Hon Dat - Kiên Lương and in some local islands so far.

Therefore, the province has made efforts to re-plant the coastal protective forest, in parallel with building breakwaters to prevent landslides and create sedimentation to help the forest in growing.

Data from the agriculture department said nearly 3 ha of mangrove forest had been re-planted during 2009-2011, forming a strong protective belt in front of the sea in Vam Ray Village, Hon Đat District, following the Integrated Coastal Management Programme, funded by the German Agency for International Co-operation (GIZ).

Nguyen Van Hung, director of the provincial Forest Management Board said when afforestation was successful, creating a green shield, threats from nature had been minimised.

It was much more convenient to re-build livelihoods of local people. In addition to livelihood restoration, people's awareness of environment and climate-change adaptation was also improved, he said.

Hoang Van Tuan, deputy director of the agriculture department said the province already grew 604 ha of coastal protective forest between 2019 and now.

The varieties that were selected for growing the coastal protection forests were typical species with high tolerance such as mangrove, he said.

After the trees had grown into forests, they would be handed over to the local forest management board and forest rangers to take care, he said.

Recently, the project "Combining coastal protection and mangrove rehabilitation in Kien Giang and Ca Mau provinces" has been kicked off by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. 

The project’s implementation period is between 2019 to 2022 with a total fund of EUR24 million (USD28 million). Of which, the preferential loan from the German Government is EUR18 million and the counterpart fund of the Vietnamese Government is EUR6 million.

The project is believed to be one of the foundations for the locality to implement the Resolution No 120 of the Government on sustainable development of the Mekong Delta, adapting to climate change.