Word: vietnam
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...that wood and lumber was an unusual sight, concedes Pham Thanh Lam, director of the Forestry Protection Bureau in Quang Nam, the province where the typhoon made landfall on Sept. 29. The storm was one of the most powerful to hit Vietnam in the past 50 years, killing at least 164 people. The highest number of deaths occurred in the mountainous province of Kon Tum, after heavy rains triggered flash flooding and landslides. At least two villages were completely buried. (See pictures of Ketsana's damage in Manila...
...does it seem that Vietnam can stem the larger problem of illegal logging. Its park rangers are ill-equipped and too few in number to adequately patrol protected forests. A report issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in August cited hundreds of attacks on rangers during a five-month period in 2009, resulting in 14 serious injuries. Illegal loggers and animal poachers have tried to run over officials with their vehicles, according to the report, and attack rangers with syringes. Lax management and local authorities colluding with loggers were partly to blame for the illegal logging...
...timber is big business in Vietnam, where demand for exotic wood products in Europe and the U.S. has been driving illegal logging for years. Furniture manufacturing and wood processing earned Vietnam $2.8 billion last year, making it one of the largest hard-currency earners in the country. Loggers have become so brazen that they are even going after the rare Dalbergia tonkinesis trees planted on the streets of Vietnam's capital, chopping them down in the middle of the night and selling them to traders...
...Though less than 1% of Vietnam's primary or old-growth forest remains, overall, forest cover is actually on the increase. Vietnam's central government has been pursuing an aggressive national planting program to boost tree cover to 43%, up from a low of 28% two decades ago, says Dao Xuan Lai, head of the U.N. Development Program's Sustainable Development office in Hanoi. Unfortunately, many of the reforested areas are replanted with fruit orchards or fast-growing trees for the pulp and paper industry...
...Millions of people live on these lands and earn their livelihoods from the forest. It's always a challenge to pursue policies that allow local communities to live in the protected areas but also maintain the habitats. Other countries in Asia are trying to do this, he says, but Vietnam is actually faring better than most...