Forests become rubber farms in Binh Phuoc

Authorities in the southern province of Binh Phuoc have reportedly transferred thousands of hectares of forests to private individuals for conversion into rubber plantations after dubbing them as barren lands.

Most of these farms are owned by rich people from other places like Ho Chi Minh City and Binh Duong who possess 30 to 100 hectares each, local residents said.

This wholesale destruction of the environment has occurred mainly in Chon Thanh, Bu Gia Map, Bu Dang, Binh Long, and Dong Phu Districts.

But local authorities insist the farms have come up only in places where forests had “degraded.”

“Until last month Binh Phuoc had approved 177 cases involving transfer of 42,600 hectares of degraded forests to individuals for converting into farms,” the director of the province’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Nguyen Van Toi, said.

The transfer was carefully monitored by a special task force, he claimed.

But Tuoi Tre and forestry officials witnessed a different scene in the area.

Large trees still lie around on some farms in Bu Dang and Dong Phu Districts, evidence that forests were chopped down.

The new owners have been unable to clear them because it is illegal to carry large trees out of forests, according to Pham Van Nong, head of the Suoi Rang forest management in the neighboring province of Dong Nai.

Nong affirmed there has been widespread destruction of forests in Binh Phuoc in recent years.

“In 2005 the whole northern side of the Vinh Cuu Sanctuary was protected by a buffer zone of thick natural forests in Binh Phuoc,” he told Tuoi Tre.

The strip, growing along the Ma Da River that separates Dong Nai and Binh Phuoc, has been reduced from 78km in width to just 7km now, he added.

“Without the buffer, the Vinh Cuu sanctuary faces a big threat of encroachment,” the sanctuary’s director, Tran Van Mui, said.

“It’s illogical even to transform barren forest land into farms; it should be afforested instead.

“This forest in Binh Phuoc has long nurtured water sources and acted as a lung for the country’s southeastern region.”

Cao Ngoc Long, deputy director of the Bu Gia Map National Park in Binh Phuoc, sounded a dire warning: “The province could lose its entire forest cover in five months if the destruction is not halted now.”

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