Int’l Organizations Help Vietnam Better Awareness of Forest, Climate Change

A number of international organizations Mar 6 gathered at a meeting in Vietnam’s capital city of Hanoi to discuss about forest and climate change issues. The event attracted representatives from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), the International Transparency Organization and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Participants focused on sharing experiences in the protection of forest amid climate change and forest management in Vietnam as well as its efforts in climate change response and forest environment service payment. They also emphasized the significant role of communications in raising the public awareness of forest protection in the context that deforestation has become a pressing problem. Vietnam’s forest coverage has sharply reduced for many reasons including logging, forest fire, nomadism, hydropower projects and forest land lease to foreign investors. To manage and protect forest more effectively, it is necessary to perfect policies of forest management, to use and preserve existing forest acreage; and to boost afforestation and forest restoration. With great efforts in protecting and developing forests, Vietnam planted 212,000 more hectares of forest last year, raising its forest coverage to 40% from 32% in 1998 and it expects to lift the figure to 45% in the coming years, experts said. (Thoi Bao Kinh Te – Economic Times Mar 7 p2)