Special-use and coastal protection forests are well preserved in Ca Mau Province

Dramatic decrease in forest exploitation violations

According to Director of Ca Mau Province’s Forest Protection Department, Le Van Hai, there were 24 cases of deforestation and illegal forest exploitation in the province in the first 9 months of the year. The damaged forest area is 18,800sq.m, lower than the average area of the same period of previous years. The protection of natural forests and planted forests, including special-use and coastal protection types, has been properly implemented. Meanwhile, the deforestation in mangrove areas to expand the water surface for aquaculture has been eased and the cases of the forestry law violations have decreased significantly.

He said that the law on forest protection and development used to mainly focus on forest protection, afforestation, forest restoration and forest development. However, it has been revised and expanded to cover other issues, including forest product trading and processing, tourism and especially, services.

The forestry sector of Ca Mau Province is currently following the direction of sustainable forest protection, he added.

“If in the past, forest exploitation was not allowed in the dry season for fear of forest fires, now this regulation is no longer appropriate. Accordingly, households, individuals and businesses can exploit forests when the price is high, following the sustainable forest management plan.

“Forest owners have the right to remain autonomous on the allocated forest and develop forests sustainably. Since these regulations were issued, there have been no fires in the U Minh Ha National Park. The allocations of the forests to households and businesses enable them to realize benefits from forest resources and therefore, try to protect and develop forests more sustainably,” Hai said.

Coordination with specialized agencies

However, according to Hai, many households are still residing in and nearby the forests, which has imposed many negative impacts on the coastal ecosystem and pressure in the management and protection of forests. 

Some of the affecting activities include expanding the water surface for aquaculture or building houses in the forests. In addition, coastal erosion affecting protection forests has also occurred in many places where strict measures have not been taken.

“The coastal forest ecosystem is a natural belt stretching across the administrative territory of 6 districts, which plays a particularly important role in handling climate change and sea level rise. To effectively direct and perform the task of preserving special-use and coastal protection forests, it is crucial to maintain the coordination between agencies specialized in forest management and protection in Ca Mau Province. The Coordination Regulations have been reviewed and re-signed annually. Reports and quarterly, 6-month and year-end assessments on the implementation, difficulties and solutions for the upcoming time have been regularly made,” he noted.

The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Ca Mau Province has signed a regulation on coordination with the People's Committees of districts, management boards of national parks, relevant organizations as well as news agencies. The Forest Protection Department of the province has also signed a regulation on coordination with the Fire Prevention and Fighting Police Department of the Provincial Public Security Department and the Forest Protection Departments of the neighboring provinces.

Additionally, the management boards of national parks and protection forest in the locality have signed regulations on coordination with district forest rangers, border guard posts, and district police. The closely coordinated multi-level forces have promptly reacted to incidents such as forest fires, deforestation, fighting against enforcement staff, illegal trade and transportation of forest products and wild animals, natural disasters and coastal erosion.

Thanks to such close coordinations, the forest protection work in Ca Mau Province in the first 9 months of 2022 has achieved remarkable results. Many decisive and strict measures to protect forests have been taken by forest owners and local authorities, which helps to timely and effectively prevent and handle violations in forest protection and development while raising the local awareness.

A training course for forest owners and rangers in the area on updating and monitoring forest developments and another on sanctioning administrative violations in the forestry sector have been organized in the province. Meanwhile, many local newspapers and radio stations have published many news, articles and reports on the promotion and dissemination of laws in the field of forestry. Forest owners and rangers in the area have coordinated with the local authorities in supervising motor vehicles entering and leaving the forest and those that are allowed to operate in the forests in accordance with regulations.

Forest fire prevention and fighting has been carried out in the locality since the beginning of the dry season. Forest owners are organizations that develop forest fire prevention and fighting plans; Commune-level authorities develop plans for forest fire prevention and fighting that ensure high feasibility, suit the current situations and follow the motto "4 on-sites" (on-site command; one-site task force; on-site vehicles and materials; on-site logistics).Forest protection agencies are responsible for advising People's Committees to develop and submit plans for forest fire prevention and fighting. As a result, in the dry season in early 2022, there were no forest fires in the locality.

In addition, biodiversity conservation and wildlife management in Ca Mau province has well promoted the role of biodiversity protection, biological genetic resources, historical and cultural relics, landscape and forest environment, thereby minimizing the negative impacts of climate change and leaving positive impact on local economic and social development.

The annual increase in forest cover of the province has partially enriched the ecosystem of special-use and coastal protection forest, which is an area with high biodiversity. Especially, dozens of new hectares of forest are created annually from the process of primary succession on newly accreted land.

According to forest development in 2022,106 hectares of new special-use and coastal protection forests will be planted and 100 hectares of the ecosystem of ​​Ca Mau National Park will be revived. The implementation of the plan will come from provincial budget and funding from other programs and projects such as: KWF, WWF Vietnam, Center for Nature Conservation - Gaia, Center for Sustainable Rural Development - SRD.

Having a long coastline of 254 km, Ca Mau Province has a large system of rivers and canals (over 8,000 km) with many estuaries leading to the sea, forming a large area of mangrove and alum forests that cover over 143,680 hectares. Of which, special-use forest covers 20,100 hectares, protection forest over 30,900 hectares and production forest nearly 91,680 hectares.