Difficulties in granting FSC forest certification in Yen Bai: [Article 3] What to do to make farmers feel secure in production?

The plan to grant forest certification in 2024 in Yen Bai province failed. Photo: Thanh Tien.

No new certified forests in 2024

According to the report of the Yen Bai Provincial Forest Protection Department, in 2024, the whole province strives to grant forest certificates to 22,550 hectares. Of which, Yen Binh district will grant 2,000 hectares and continue to maintain 13,285 hectares that have been granted; Luc Yen district plans to grant 2,000 hectares, maintain 310 hectares of granted certificates; Van Chan district will grant 3,000 hectares; Tran Yen district and Yen Bai city will maintain nearly 2,000 hectares. However, during the whole year, there was no new forest area granted FSC certificates, currently only nearly 13,000 hectares, reaching 57.3% of the plan.

Luc Yen district has about 23,000 hectares of forest, of which nearly 12,000 hectares are planted for production. In recent years, local authorities have disseminated, promoted, and mobilized people to register for sustainable forest certification, collected registration applications, and verified forest owner information.

In 2024 alone, the authorities identified more than 2,100 hectares of more than 900 households in Trung Tam, Phuc Loi, Dong Quan communes, Khanh Hoa. However, Hoa Phat Forestry Joint Stock Company and the consulting unit did not send staff to work in the locality and have not yet implemented the next activities on forest certification as planned.

Mr. Kieu Tu Giang, Head of Yen Bai Provincial Forest Protection Department, inspected the progress of forest certification in Tran Yen district. Photo: Thanh Tien.

Sharing this situation, in Van Chan district, commune-level FSC teams have promoted and reviewed areas that are capable of being certified to introduce to businesses and encourage people to register to participate. Due to many difficulties, Yen Bai Green Industry Development Joint Stock Company (the registered unit) has not yet implemented forest certification activities in 2024.

In addition, in Yen Binh and Tran Yen districts, Hoa Phat Forestry Joint Stock Company and Mai Lam Forestry Company Limited are implementing activities to maintain certificates and have not yet implemented new issuance activities as planned.

The cost of forest certification is high.

Hoa Phat Forestry Joint Stock Company was established in 2013, is a unit that produces and trades acacia wood for export. The company has invested in developing acacia wood plantations and building FSC sustainable forest certification in Yen Bai province and has plans to expand to Bac Giang, Bac Kan, Thanh Hoa, Phu Tho provinces...

According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuong, Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of Hoa Phat Forestry Joint Stock Company, from 2017 to now, the Company has achieved 3 forest certificates, up to now 2 certificates have expired, currently there are over 5,000 hectares still valid and about 5,000 hectares are being re-certified in Yen Binh district. In 2025, the Company strives to achieve more than 12,000 hectares in Yen Binh and Luc Yen districts.

To implement FSC certification for 5,000 hectares of forest, the Company invested 1.8 billion VND in the first year to provide technical training to local people, hire consultants, measure maps and issue certificates. In the next 4 years, it will continue to invest 800 million VND/year to maintain the certificate. Certified wood products are purchased by the Company at a price 5-7% higher than that of conventional forest wood.

Enterprises must spend more than 5 billion VND to issue forest certificates for 5,000 hectares and maintain them for 5 years. Photo: Thanh Tien.

In previous years, due to the impact of the world conflict situation and the Covid-19 pandemic, the progress of forest certification was slow. However, the Company is still the unit with the largest forest area in Yen Bai province in terms of forest certification.

The granting of forest certification is of interest to the government and functional sectors of Yen Bai province, creating favorable conditions to increase economic benefits for the people. In addition, people are instructed on sustainable forest cultivation techniques, preventing tree breakage, limiting erosion and landslides, and minimizing chemicals to protect the environment. In particular, the Company has standard plantation wood materials in the supply chain for processing and manufacturing enterprises for export to demanding international markets such as the US, Japan and European countries.

In 2025, the world wood consumption market is recovering, the Company will need more products from FSC certified forest areas. Therefore, the Company will build more factories to purchase wood products for farmers.

Solutions to increase certified forest area

Mr. Kieu Tu Giang, Head of the Yen Bai Provincial Forest Protection Department, said that the implementation of forest certification in Yen Bai is still slow due to many reasons such as: the forest management level of forest owners is very low compared to international sustainable forest management standards, many forest owners do not have full awareness of sustainable forest management associated with forest certification.

Achieving FSC certification requires a large investment, and the cost of hiring experts to conduct annual periodic assessments is quite high, beyond the capacity of small-scale forest growers. Without investment and support from businesses, forest certification cannot be carried out.

FSC is a forest certification process with quite strict principles and criteria for private forest management and exploitation activities, including criteria that are currently problems that Yen Bai province has not yet solved.

Yen Bai province has been implementing many solutions to develop and manage forests sustainably. Photo: Thanh Tien.

Most of the forest plantation areas of households and individuals are still small and fragmented, with many types of trees planted in one forest plot, leading to low economic value when participating in FSC. People are not interested in participating in linking to build sustainable forest management plans and implementing forest certification.

Many forest areas of households and individuals have not been granted land use right certificates, so the legality of the documents is not complete according to regulations. Therefore, the temporary solution is for the local government to confirm that the forest area is stably cultivated by households and is not in dispute. In the long term, it is necessary to complete the documents and issue land use right certificates to households.

In order for the forest certification to achieve results according to the set roadmap, helping to increase farmers' income and provide qualified raw materials for export processing enterprises, Yen Bai province will continue to review and organize annual assessments of the area of ​​planted forests that have been granted forest certificates in Yen Binh, Tran Yen, Luc Yen districts and Yen Bai city to maintain and expand the area of ​​certified forests.

In addition, businesses are required to comply with their commitments when participating in forest certification. Organize the purchase and consumption of all wood products for people with forest areas participating in the certification. Do not let people sell FSC-certified wood on the grounds that businesses do not purchase, affecting people's psychology and causing losses to businesses' capital.