People "pay off debt" to the forest

In the days leading up to Tet, when the wind brings a gentle breath of spring, it is also the time when Mr. Le Phuc Nhat, in Phuong An 2 village, Cam Nghia commune, Cam Lo district, is busy preparing for a new forest planting season. Few people know that the person who diligently planted these forests once cut down natural forests to occupy cultivated land and had to pay the price with a suspended prison sentence. After serving his sentence, he tried every way to restore the green color to the forests.

People

Forests planted from tissue-hybrid acacia seedlings provided by Keo Son Sustainable Forestry Cooperative are growing and developing well - Photo: LT

Debt to the forest...

Born and raised in the red soil of Cua, Nhat had to struggle to make a living from fields, gardens and forests. After getting married, due to difficult conditions and not having a job, he and his relatives cultivated more than 1 hectare of acacia forest. However, that was not enough to support the whole family. In a time of hardship, in 2015, Nhat cleared and encroached on about 0.8 hectare of natural forest next to the land he was cultivating to plant acacia trees.

Nhat's actions were discovered by the authorities and brought to trial with a suspended sentence of 15 months in prison, 36 months of probation and a fine of 65 million VND for destroying natural forests. "At that time, I completely collapsed, partly because I was ashamed of myself, partly because I was worried about my family's future. But during my sentence, I realized my mistakes and thought in a more positive way, that is, after serving my sentence, I must do something to develop the economy properly, without violating State regulations," Nhat recounted.

People

Mr. Le Phuc Nhat (wearing a hat) instructs people on how to take care of acacia trees planted using the method of not burning the ground cover - Photo: LT

After serving his sentence, with his limited knowledge of forestry seedlings, Mr. Nhat discussed with his wife to borrow 100 million VND from the district Social Policy Bank to build a cajuput nursery. “At that time, I simply thought, I lived thanks to the forest and had made a mistake in destroying the forest, so now I had to “pay back” the debt to the forest, which is also to earn a living from the forest. To do this, I went online to research, self-study knowledge about tree planting and then went to nurseries in and outside the province to gain experience,” Mr. Nhat confided.

Initially, he experimented with growing about 500,000 hybrid acacia trees using cuttings. Thanks to careful care, the trees grew well and were accepted by local people to buy and plant. Realizing that the demand for this type of tree from local people was quite large, Mr. Nhat boldly expanded the scale of production. In 2020, he and other members in the commune established the Keo Son Sustainable Forestry Cooperative with 11 initial members. Now the Cooperative has over 25 official members and 125 households associated in production.

Nurturing green shoots

Since its inception, Keo Son Sustainable Forestry Cooperative has provided millions of seedlings of all kinds to local people. Mr. Nhat shared that after its establishment, the Cooperative focused on building its goal of providing high-quality forestry seedlings, along with support services and silvicultural consulting. In 2022, with the support of the National Agricultural Extension Center, he and the Cooperative members collaborated with the Provincial Agricultural Extension Center to build an improved nursery model to produce the first tissue-cultured hybrid acacia seedlings in the area to serve member households participating in the large timber plantation project with sustainable forest management certification (FSC).

People

People trust in using tissue-hybrid acacia seedlings grown by Keo Son Sustainable Forestry Cooperative - Photo: LT

With the task of providing mother plant materials, each year Keo Son Sustainable Forestry Cooperative provides over 300 thousand input seedlings to nurseries throughout the province and over 1 million seedlings to meet the capacity of planting 400 hectares of new forests/year.

By focusing on consolidating and expanding the scale of nurseries applying tissue culture technology, up to now, through a group of support services from seedlings, fertilizers, planting techniques, care, consulting on conversion from small-scale plantation timber to large-scale timber with FSC certification and purchasing and consuming products, Keo Son Sustainable Forestry Cooperative is taking charge of 127 hectares of production forest of 22 member households and 1,000 hectares of forest associated with 500 forest owners in Cam Lo district.

According to Mr. Nhat, the process of growing seedlings using tissue culture method requires very complicated techniques and takes longer than traditional varieties. However, if using this variety, there will be fewer pests and diseases and the quality of wood used for processing materials will be many times better than cuttings, because the trees grow quickly, have a good resistant taproot system, favorable for the model of planting large timber forests. With suitable tree varieties, in 2023, Mr. Nhat boldly consulted the Board of Directors of the Cooperative to expand links with non- governmental organizations and projects on sustainable forest management and protection to pioneer the method of planting forests without burning the ground cover using self-produced tissue-cultured hybrid acacia trees.

As a member of Keo Son Sustainable Forestry Cooperative, Mr. Le Hai Binh's family in Hoan Cat village, Cam Nghia commune, participated in planting 2 hectares of FSC-certified plantation timber from August 2023 using the method of not burning the ground cover using tissue-hybrid acacia varieties. With the support of more than 4,000 seedlings from the Cooperative, Mr. Binh's family's plantation forest is currently growing and developing well with tree heights of 60-80 cm. According to Mr. Binh, planting forests without leveling the land or burning the ground cover will have more benefits than the old method of planting forests with clearing. Because planting forests with clearing the ground cover will incur costs; on the contrary, planting forests without burning the ground cover costs less but gives a higher yield of about 20-30 tons of wood and limits greenhouse gas emissions, a prerequisite when participating in and maintaining FSC forest certification. Therefore, the selling price will be much higher than that of traditional plantation forests.

Chairman of Cam Nghia Commune People's Committee Le Huu Phuong said that from a person who had committed forest destruction, Mr. Le Phuc Nhat has overcome himself to rebuild the forest with the current property. This is an example of good economic performance that we have replicated for people in the commune to follow. Therefore, the locality always creates the best conditions for Keo Son Sustainable Forestry Cooperative to operate and expand its scale such as: leasing and borrowing land to implement nursery models, mother material seedling gardens; connecting the Cooperative to access preferential loan sources; supporting the Cooperative to build a project for high-quality, environmentally friendly forestry seedling nurseries...

Through these projects, Mr. Nhat has created more jobs for dozens of local people at two tree nurseries managed by Keo Son Sustainable Forestry Cooperative. His efforts and those of his members have helped Keo Son Sustainable Forestry Cooperative to develop and expand its scale in the field of silviculture and forestry.

And so, Mr. Nhat's journey of "paying back his debt" to the forest will continue...

Le Truong

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