Hundreds of billions of dong in carbon credits 'stuck'

Quang Binh has a huge area of ​​natural forest that can maximize the value from selling carbon credits, but Decree 107 is currently causing many difficulties in payment - Photo: QUOC NAM

However, most of them are still "stuck" in the forest owners' accounts because of two regulations in Decree 107.

The forest owners, the protection forest management boards and forestry companies, are the units that encounter the most problems among these. These are the forest owners who are managing extremely large areas of natural forest in the area.

Money comes back like nothing

Long Dai Forestry Company is one of the units with the largest forest area in Quang Binh to receive carbon credit payments earlier this year. With an area of ​​​​managing more than 57,000 hectares of natural forest, in 2023 and 2024, this unit received a total of 21 billion VND in carbon credits from the World Bank.

The entire amount has been transferred to the unit's account for more than half a year. However, up to now, the unit has not been able to make the payment for the right purpose.

According to the leader of Long Dai Company, this amount is expected to be used to pay for management costs of forest protection contracts, support livelihoods for communities participating in forest management agreements, support commune People's Committees participating in forest management agreements (at a rate of 2% per commune), implement silvicultural measures such as zoning, promoting regeneration, enriching forests, supporting propaganda and training...

However, due to the regulations of Decree 107, all of those plans had to be temporarily "frozen".

According to research, Decree No. 107/2022/ND-CP issued on December 28, 2022 by the Government on piloting the transfer of emission reduction results and financial management of greenhouse gas emission reduction payment agreements in the North Central region.

This includes the regulation of "no overlapping expenditures with other state budget expenditures". This is the biggest "bottleneck" that leads to many units receiving carbon credit payments in their accounts but being unable to disburse.

The leader of a forest management enterprise in Quang Binh explained that currently, most of the natural forest area in Quang Binh province has been allocated funding from the state budget according to current policies through programs and projects.

"Therefore, if we spend more money from carbon credits, it will be overlapping and duplicate spending, violating Decree 107," said the company's leader.

Petitioned many times, but...

According to the Quang Binh Provincial Forest Protection Department, the province has 11,411 forest owners who are households, individuals, and communities; 23 forest owners who are organizations and 71 commune-level People's Committees eligible for carbon credit payments.

Of these, only forest owners, including households, individuals, communities and commune-level People's Committees, are quite favorable in receiving carbon credit payments.

As for forest owners who are organizations, only a few special-use forest management units and Phong Nha - Ke Bang National Park are favorable, while the remaining forest owners, protection forest management boards and forestry companies, must completely "freeze" this amount of money. This figure is up to hundreds of billions of VND.

In Quang Tri, the leader of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development also said that he had received 50 billion VND in carbon credit payments but was "stuck" by Decree 107 with similar forest owner groups.

"Currently, the maximum payment for forest protection according to the latest regulations is up to 800,000 VND per hectare. But in reality, the payment level of other forest protection programs that also benefit from the state budget is currently only 300,000 VND per hectare.

That means the forest rangers are still "empty" compared to the ceiling level of more than half of the norm. If we calculate the payment from carbon credits to compensate for that gap, it will increase people's responsibility in protecting the forest," said the leader of this department.

Mr. Tran Quoc Tuan, Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Quang Binh province, said that Quang Binh province has great potential for exploiting carbon credits because its forest cover is the second largest in the country. The province is also planning to develop diverse forests to exploit the value of carbon credits. However, the problems of Decree 107 are "bottlenecks" that make this difficult.

According to Mr. Tuan, Quang Binh province has made a proposal to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to remove the regulations that cause this problem. However, up to now, the ministry has not taken any action to remove it.

Leaders of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Quang Tri also said that some regulations of Decree 107 are creating great obstacles to forest development in the direction of exploiting carbon credits.

"We have also sent a proposal to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and hope that higher-level agencies will have solutions to remove the problem so that the exploitation of carbon credits can bring the best results," said the leader of this department.

According to the leader of the Quang Binh Provincial Forest Protection Department, in Decree 107, in addition to the problem of the regulation prohibiting overlapping payments, there is also a problem of the subjects participating in forest management agreements.

Specifically, Clause 2, Article 5 of the Decree stipulates that the subjects participating in forest management agreements with forest owners are communities, while the natural forest area assigned to organizations for management is mainly in remote areas, along the Vietnam - Laos border, where there are few or no communities living.

Therefore, many forest owners are organizations that cannot implement forest protection contracts with residential communities.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/hang-tram-ti-dong-tin-chi-carbon-mac-ket-20240903224109837.htm