A nursery in Quang Binh province (Source: VNA) He is part of a growing trend in the central province of Quang Binhwhere residents are planting trees that used to grow in local forests insteadof easily harvestable ones like cajeput.
The longer-term strategy is helping them earn billions of dong whilebetter protecting the local environment and helping preserve different kinds ofvaluable local trees.
A four-hectare forest in Ha village, Thanh Hoa commune, Tuyen Hoadistrict, has valuable trees said to be facing a high risk of extinction, likeironwood, canary-wood and aloe wood.
The forest is the lifelong achievement of farmer Dinh Xuan Dien,78.
Dien said that in 1997, after a long time of working as illegallogger, he quit the job, unable to witness anymore the destruction he and hispeers were wreaking on the nation’s forest and the environment. At that time,the State was encouraging citizens to join a campaign of planting forests.
Dien decided to take wild piece of land, which happened to be anational historic site, to plant trees and set up a farm.
Unlike other people, Dien did not plant trees like eucalyptus andcajeput, focusing instead on what used to grow traditionally in the area, likeironwood, canary-wood and aloe wood.
At that time, no person in the area could germinate these trees,so Dien took saplings from the forest. He did this over many years, takingsaplings from the forest and planting them on his land. His patience and carehas seen his forest grow to more than 2,000 ironwood trees, 500 canary woodtrees and thousands of other trees.
Dien is the only man in the province with such a large collectionof ironwood trees. Each of them has a diameter of about 50cm and is severaldozen metres tall.
Dien and his family have lived well for several years now onincome from forestry products. He sells ironwood mushrooms for 2 million VND (90USD) per kilogramme, as well as fruits like grapefruits, oranges, jackfruitsand bananas.
In 2014, Dien earned 600 million VND (26,600 USD) from sellingaloe wood.
“I could have harvested early if I had planted eucalyptus andother kinds of trees. But this would not be good for the environment. I plantedlocal trees with the hope of giving back to the forest its natural beauty andmaintaining different kinds of valuble wood trees that I used to destroy.”
Dien is not the only person in the province that has shifted toplanting and nurturing local trees.
Nguyen Xuan Thiet lives in Huong Hoa commune, Tuyen Hoa district.He converted 15ha of cajeput forest into one that was home to local treesincluding ironwood. The forest earns his family an income of severalmillion dong (100 million VND equals 4,300 USD) per year.
Nguyen Tri Phuong, head of Tuyen Hoa district’s Agriculture andRural Development Division, said that the time taken to plant and harvest localtrees was double that of others, but the income it brought in many times morethan industrial trees like cajeput and eucalyptus.
Planting local trees not only earned them good profits, but alsoprotected the environment and preserved valuable trees that were in danger ofbeing lost forever, he said.-VNA
VNA
