Vietnam mulls blanket ban on logging
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The rapid stripping of Vietnam's forest cover has prompted the agriculture ministry to mull overhauling its policy on logging activities.
The ministry discussed whether to ban commercial logging in natural forests, at a meeting with the State Steering Committee on forest protection and development in Ha Noi last week.
The opponents of a complete ban have called for a more comprehensive protection regime that would deny loggers access to preserved forests.
However, others point out that such a measure would bring a decline in public revenues and cause problems for commercial logging firms as well as the estimated one million workers who manage the two million hectares of natural forest in the country.
A committee member also noted that a ban could be counterproductive, with a diminishing supply of legally felled timber intensifying pressure to restart illegal logging.
Another measure suggested was to limit the number of accredited loggers along with areas open for logging. However, this would necessitate the introduction of new effective management mechanisms, which would seriously dent the state budget and also interfere with existing management of state-run forests.
It was also suggested that businesses involved in the felling or processing of illegally logged timber should be more vigorously prosecuted.
Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai, who chaired the meeting, emphasised the urgent need to come up with new management procedures to protect and develop forests.
The long-term aim for 2020 is for the quality of natural forests to be lifted to a level that can provide sufficient supplies of timber for domestic needs, which have so far relied on imports.
According to the latest field survey by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the total area of natural forests in the country is 10.28 million hectares, of which, those that are open for logging cover 4.3 million hectares, mainly in the Central Highlands, northeastern region and the northern part of the central region.
