Plant 4,000 trees on World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought

On the morning of June 17, the Forestry Department, in collaboration with the Vietnam National University of Forestry, organized a rally and tree-planting campaign in response to the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the launching of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

According to the United Nations, an area of ​​land equivalent to four football fields is degraded every second. The total area of ​​globally degraded land annually is about 100 million hectares. In particular, up to 40% of the world's land has been degraded, affecting nearly half of humanity.

In recent years, droughts have become more frequent and severe. Droughts caused by climate change even risk exacerbating desertification. The frequency and duration of droughts have increased by nearly 30% since 2000. The United Nations estimates that droughts could affect over three-quarters of the world's population by 2050.

The World Health Organization (WHO) also warns that drought affects nearly 56 million people globally, 40% of the population suffers from water scarcity, and about 700 million people are at risk of migrating by 2030. Drought is also a serious threat to livestock and crops and is one of the causes of 80 - 90% of natural disasters recorded in the past ten years.

By 2023, the world needs about 300 million more hectares of productive land to ensure global food security. Faced with this alarming situation, the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification has called for global participation to realize the international commitment to restore 1 billion hectares of degraded land by 2030.

Vietnam is a country affected by drought, land degradation and dunes that move during the monsoon season. According to statistics, the whole country currently has about 11.8 million hectares, accounting for about 35% of the country's total natural land area, which is affected by degradation and fallowing, leading to desertification.

Based on an investigation by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Vietnam has about 400 hectares of natural desert. Although it is not a key country in desertification, land degradation has been taking place silently in many areas, especially the Northwest, Central Highlands, and South Central Coast.

Also, according to this report, Vietnam has a local desertification phenomenon in narrow sand strips stretching along the Central coast from Quang Binh to Binh Thuan. This is also the place with the largest desertification area in the country, with more than 400,000 hectares.

Over the past nearly 40 years, the movement of dunes has made the desertification process more and more serious. Every year, about 10-20 hectares of arable land are encroached by sand, leading to a sharp decline in soil fertility.

The forestry sector, with over 14.8 million hectares of forested land, not only plays an essential role in economic development, ensuring biodiversity conservation, responding to climate change, and protecting the environment but is also a green strategic solution that contributes to efforts to limit drought and desertification.

Despite many difficulties, the forestry industry completed its targets in 2023, including concentrated afforestation, forest product export value, and building policy mechanisms to increasingly enforce the Law on Forestry more effectively.

Speaking at the ceremony, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Quoc Tri said that 2024 will be the third year Vietnam implements the Sustainable Forestry Development Program for the period 2021 - 2025.

In the first six months of the year, the forestry industry encountered many difficulties, such as prolonged drought in many places and forest fires occurring at different scales, causing significant damage to forests and people. However, with the determination of the entire industry, the Deputy Minister believes that the whole industry will be determined to achieve the set goals and plans.

One of them is the implementation of Vietnam's commitments to responding to climate change, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and shifting economic development towards green growth.

With the theme of this year's World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, "United for Land. Our Legacy. Our Future", the Deputy Minister called on all levels and agencies to Sectors and localities to continue to raise awareness, act responsibly, and at the same time develop and implement the National Action Program to combat desertification for the period up to 2030 and vision to 2050.

"Today, we are here, contributing a small tree to be grown on the earth's surface. It is a small action with great meaning and a message to the future about environmental protection. I call on the entire industry to enthusiastically participate in forest protection, tree planting, afforestation, sustainable forest development, contributing to preventing land degradation, for socio-economic development, national security and defense, and making our country, every day becomes greener - cleaner - more beautiful and richer", the Deputy Minister expressed.

Contributing to this meaningful event, the project "Planting 1 billion trees in the period 2021 - 2025" sponsored about 1,000 trees and awarded Hoa Binh province more than 3,000 forestry seedlings, with the hope of adding more. More trees are planted, contributing to making Vietnam greener and fresher.

At the end of the ceremony, Deputy Minister Nguyen Quoc Tri and officials and employees of the forestry sector planted trees at the campus of Vietnam National University of Forestry.