New mechanisms and policies would be adopted to boost forest development and protection in line with poverty reduction for poor ethnic minority people.
This is the major content of a draft decree recently announced by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Accordingly, ethnic minority households residing in disadvantaged communes of remote and mountainous areas would annually receive VND 400,000 per each hectare of special-use or protection forests or other forests assigned to them for protection, a twofold increase from the current level.
Households participating in reforestation would receive up to VND 1 million per hectare per year within six years, for cases of low-intensity plantation; or VND 2 million per hectare per year for the first three years and VND 1 million per year for the subsequent three years, for other cases.
Meanwhile, those who plant forests on converted paddy fields would receive either cash or in-kind support at the level of 700 kg of rice per hectare per year for at most seven years.
In order to encourage the plantation of production forests for exploitation of timber and non-timber forest products, the State would provide support at the level of VND 10 million per each hectare of planted forests which reach maturity at the age 10 or older. For those who plant forest trees that become mature at younger ages, the support level would be VND 6 million per hectare. In addition to direct support, the State would also offer indirect support by providing interest-rate subsidies for bank loans borrowed for production forest plantation and husbandry.
Commenting on the draft, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Van Ninh said forest protection and development was one of the measures for achieving sustainable poverty reduction. However, the draft should cover all ethnic groups living in mountainous areas rather than restricting to only ethnic minority people, he added.-
