Effectively implementing New Year tree-planting festival

In 2018, Vietnam planted more than 230,000 hectares of trees, equal to 118.7% of the yearly plan, including 15,070 hectares of protection and special-use forests (100.5%) and over 216,000 hectares of production forest (120.3% of the annual plan).

Tree planting and afforestation not only contribute to greenly covering bare land and bare hills, but also gradually help the forestry sector to proactively mobilise sources of wood materials for domestic and export needs. Currently, wood and wood products are the sixth largest export industry in Vietnam, accounting for 6% of the world market share and ranking first in ASEAN, second in Asia and fifth in the world. Last year alone, Vietnam earned US$9.308 billion from the export of wood and wood products, up 15.9% compared to 2017, representing more than 23% of the export revenues of industries in the field of agriculture and rural development.

In order to prepare for a practical and effective 2019 Tet tree-planting festival, the local authorities should strengthen communication in order to raise awareness of the role, affects and economic values of forests, as well as the significance of tree planting, afforestation and forest protection to protect the ecological environment and contribute to mitigating natural disasters and responding to climate change. Meanwhile, it is necessary for the authorities at all levels to create favourable conditions for agencies, organisations, unions, schools, armed forces and all strata of people to participate in tree planting and afforestation.

Notably, localities and units need to develop specific tree planting and afforestation plans, which are suitable to the conditions of each region and locality. To ensure the planted trees grow well and have a high survival rate, each locality should base its selections on the weather and soil conditions to choose suitable seedlings and rationally associate planting sites with future exploitation demands.

The Tet tree-planting festival is organised at the beginning of the Lunar New Year in the northern provinces, and on the occassion of the birth anniversary of President Ho Chi Minh (May 19) in southern localities. It is essential to clearly and specifically assign the responsibility of looking after, managing and protecting green trees to organisations, forces, residential groups and families. Particularly, schools need to organise students to care for and plant green trees in the early spring occassion. Along with the organisation of the tree planting festival, localities should take the initiative in deploying plans to prevent and fight forest fires and combat illegal logging in the 2018-2019 dry season.