Currently, Lam Dong province has more than 2.42 million hectares of natural area. Of which, more than 1.16 million hectares are planned for forestry, accounting for nearly half of the province's area, with a forest cover rate of 46.72%.
However, illegal deforestation, encroachment and re-encroachment of forestry land still occur in some places. Through a preliminary review, the whole province has about 137 thousand hectares of forestry land being encroached.
Mr. Bui Duc Lam, Chairman of Dak N'Tao One Member Co., Ltd. said that in the forest area, due to management, there have also appeared many "hot spots" encroaching on forest land.
Through the latest review, more than 3.1 thousand hectares of land out of a total of nearly 11.2 thousand hectares assigned to the unit for management have been encroached. Of these, more than 1.8 thousand hectares have been cultivated and planted with long-term industrial crops by the people.
On October 27, speaking with Lao Dong Newspaper, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Le Trong Yen requested the grassroots government to consider forest management and protection as a key task.
In particular, the People's Committees at the commune level must review and identify high-risk areas to establish inter-sectoral forest protection posts.
Local authorities urgently allocate and lease land and forests so that the entire area has an owner to manage and strictly control the situation of free migration, effectively implement poverty reduction policies, stabilize livelihoods for people in forest areas to limit deforestation.
Forest owners need to strengthen specialized security forces, coordinate with forest rangers and local authorities in patrolling, detecting and handling violations.
Forest owners also need to develop and effectively implement land use plans, sustainable forest management, review, compile statistics, and map the area of destroyed forests and encroached forestry land to report to competent authorities for handling according to regulations.
The Department of Agriculture and Environment is assigned to preside over consulting, guiding and inspecting the management and use of forestry land; direct the Forest Protection Department to increase patrols and controls in high-risk areas, promptly detect and handle violations.
Specialized units need to strengthen effective management of land of agricultural and forestry origin and land use plans after the arrangement and consolidation of forest owners.
