Reviving forests in Ba Che

After Storm No. 3 passed, forest growers in the district could not help but grieve over the devastation caused by nature to their businesses that they had built over many years. Building mechanisms and policies to restore forestry production is one of the urgent issues that the district is focusing on.

Acacia forests were wiped out after storm number 3.

As the unit with the largest forest plantation and management area in the district, after the storm, Ba Che Forestry One Member Co., Ltd. suffered heavy damage with nearly 2,300 hectares of broken and fallen forest, worth nearly 100 billion VND. "The unit is arranging human resources to each forest patch to count and count the damage, develop a plan to handle the vegetation; classify forests according to the level of damage and forest age to have a plan to care for or replant. I hope the province will have a mechanism to reduce taxes, extend debt, and create conditions for businesses to recover after the severe impact of the storm", Ms. Bui Thi Huong, Director of the Company, shared.

According to Ms. Huong, for coal industry units, the Company is proposing a plan to repay the debt for mine timber until 2030 (equivalent to 1 planting and development cycle for acacia wood to meet the standards for supporting and blocking the furnace).

Workers of Ba Che Forestry Company Limited re-erect the green lim tree. (Photo: Viet Hoa) — Workers of Ba Che Forestry Company Limited rebuild green lim trees that were knocked down by storm No. 3. *Photo: Viet Hoa*

According to the district's report, the entire district suffered damage to about 18,613 hectares of forestry trees, mainly 2-6 year old acacia (13,000 hectares of households, 5,300 hectares of enterprises); about 100 hectares of pine, 50 hectares of large timber trees (3 year old green lim); total damage was about 740 billion VND.

In the spirit of proactively overcoming difficulties, most forest planting households and forestry companies have quickly started to restore the forest. For the forest area under 4 years old that has fallen and is almost impossible to harvest, forest owners focus on clearing and processing the ground cover to prepare for the new forest planting season. For the forest area over 4 years old, the forest wood ratio has been formed, and exploitation is carried out in the direction of both harvesting and clearing. Units have zoned off favorable areas that are easy to plant forests to prioritize restoration first, forests with low rates of falling or trees that have fallen but not uprooted will be harvested later.

Accompanying and supporting people to restore forestry production, the district is actively directing the assessment of the current situation of damaged production forest areas of organizations and individuals; directing nursery facilities and seedling suppliers to proactively prepare the quantity of forestry seedlings to serve people to restore production, not to raise prices, squeeze prices, or cause difficulties for people; directing the banking system in the area, especially the district's Social Policy Bank, to review and summarize the damage of customers who are borrowing capital, propose policies to support interest rates, freeze debt, and extend debt; continue to lend to customers who have suffered damage due to storms, rains, and floods according to regulations, so that they have conditions to restore production and business.

Forest growers in Nam Son commune grow acacia seedlings for the new crop.

Along with carrying out damage assessments, the District Department of Agriculture and Rural Development quickly processed administrative procedures and transferred them to communes to help people access and receive support from the Government according to Decree No. 02/2017/ND-CP "On mechanisms and policies to support agricultural production to restore production in areas damaged by natural disasters and epidemics". Mr. Vi Thanh Vinh, Head of the District Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said: People are considering measures to change the season and convert crop structure, such as intercropping short-term crops under low forest canopy, to have more income while waiting for the acacia forest to be harvested.

Although there are still many concerns, with the efforts of households and forest planting enterprises, and the support of sectors and levels in implementing support policies, the forests in the district will soon recover and become green again, contributing to helping forest planters develop the economy and stabilize their lives.

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