Stronger forestry laws needed: officials
Ineffective forest management has exposed shortcomings in the 2004 Law on Forest Protection and Development that need to be addressed through amendments, officials said at a conference on December 15. Participants at the national conference in the capital city said the law defined the forest as an ecosystem but failed to clarify the scale and minimum areas involved. Criteria for forest trees was also lacking, they said. Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Hà Công Tuấn said the law only focused on managing, protecting, developing and using wood but did not pay attention to the value of the forest environment services. The value of such services was much higher than that of wood, he said, adding that annual implementation of the policy on forest environment services netted revenues equal to 22 per cent of total social investments in the forestry sector.
