According to statistics from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Dak Nong, from the beginning of the year to September 15, 2024, the whole province had 225 violations of the Forestry Law.
Of these, 134 cases of deforestation occurred with a damaged area of 31.28 hectares. The deforestation area increased by 37.8% (8.58 hectares) compared to the same period in 2023. Currently, the authorities have handled 239 cases, confiscating 106,079m3 of various types of wood.
The total amount collected after handling violations is more than 853 million VND. According to the assessment, the increasing situation of forest encroachment is an alarm bell for functional sectors in forest management and protection.
Because, in recent times, forest management and protection in Dak Nong has encountered many difficulties. Among them, there have been many cases of forest law violators threatening, attacking, and assaulting forest management and protection forces to the point of requiring emergency hospitalization.
For example, in April 2024, a forest protection manager of Dak N'tao One Member Co., Ltd. was attacked and had to be hospitalized.
The incident started when Dak N’tao Company Limited, in coordination with the Forest Rangers of Quang Son Commune (Dak Glong District), organized a patrol to protect the forest. The working group discovered two people clearing forest land, so they brought the people and the evidence to the inter-sectoral checkpoint for investigation.
Later that evening, a group of seven masked men carrying logs entered the patrol team’s checkpoint and dragged three forest rangers out to beat them. The incident left one of them with a severe head injury and bleeding.
The job of forest protection management is hard and dangerous, but the salary is very low. Therefore, many forest protection management staff have resigned.
Faced with the above situation, the People's Committee of Dak Nong province has proposed that the Prime Minister and ministries and branches consider issuing special policies and incentives for forest management and protection forces.
Dak Nong Province recommends solutions for forest owners to be self-reliant in production and business. Thereby, forest owners have solutions to arrange, innovate the organization and develop human resources.
At the same time, supplement some capital policies to ensure units' operations, especially forest management, protection, and land management.
In addition, Dak Nong province also mentioned the mechanism of assigning tasks, placing public service orders for forestry companies and raising the minimum support level. From there, forest owners have more funds to recruit workers and invest in infrastructure to serve effective forest management and protection.
