It is difficult to prevent people from encroaching on forest land
According to local people, strangers who buy seedlings in large quantities and then go to the green forest are likely to encroach on forest land to plant these trees during the rainy season.
To access the natural forests in sub-zone 1617 managed by Dak N'tao Company Limited, we had to cross more than 3km of slippery forest roads during the rainy season. Below this road there are a variety of forest trees with many ancient trees up to hundreds of years old.
After crossing more than 3km of forest road, suddenly appearing before our eyes was a vast and extremely pitiful void. Here, many areas of forest land belonging to localities and managed by forestry companies have been encroached upon for production purposes. The types of trees people grow on forest land include upland rice, pepper, coffee...
According to Mr. Phung Van Kien - Deputy Director of Dak N'tao One Member Company Limited, the total area of forest land assigned to the unit for management is more than 11,185 hectares. Of which, the forested area is 7,992.25 hectares; Non-forest area is 3,193.52 hectares. This entire area is distributed in Gia Nghia city, Dak Song and Dak Glong districts of Dak Nong province.
According to statistics, the area of forestry land that has been encroached by people, cultivated, and grown crops under the management of Dak N'tao Company Limited is 1,858.54 hectares. The encroached area that has been identified for cultivation is 1,401.34 hectares/785 households, 457.2 hectares have not been identified for cultivation. Of these, the total number of houses, temporary houses, and huts built on forestry land belonging to the forestry management company is 633 houses. In Dak Song area, there are 346 houses; Dak Glong has 287 houses.
Similarly, according to Mr. Tran Huu Duong - Chairman and Director of Quang Son Forestry Company Limited, the unit is currently managing 14,392.11 hectares of forestry land. Of which, the forested area is 7,651 hectares; Non-forest land is 6,400 hectares (about 4,500 hectares have been encroached to plant trees).
The difficulty in managing forests and forest land that the unit is facing is that the company's human resources are limited and cannot recruit people with the right expertise. On the other hand, the forest land area is widely distributed, spread out, not concentrated and divided by other management units. Meanwhile, the authority of the forest owner is still limited in handling cases related to deforestation and forest land encroachment.
68,000 hectares of forest land was encroached by people
According to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Dak Nong province, there are about 68,000 hectares of forestry land managed by localities and forest owners that are being encroached by people for cultivation and agricultural production. Most of the land area was encroached before 2014. Currently, people have been living and farming stably for a long time.
There are many reasons leading to encroachment and appropriation of forestry land. In particular, the main causes such as mechanical population growth are concentrated. In particular, the situation of people migrating freely to Dak Nong province is increasing rapidly and becoming complicated.
In addition, policies to support forest economic development are not reasonable, the value brought from planted forests is low, and there are many risks. On the contrary, the value from agricultural and industrial crops is high. Therefore, people have not been able to participate in forest protection and development activities.
More importantly, local governments in some places have not well implemented their responsibilities in State management of population and land; lack of determination in the direction and management of forest land encroachment. Therefore, the motivation and purpose of violators to encroach on forest land have not been eliminated.
