On September 4, VnExpress reported “Binh Thuan: Deforestation of more than 600 hectares of natural forest to make a water reservoir.” This news immediately heated up social networks.
Specifically, leaders of Binh Thuan province decided to destroy a natural forest of 619 hectares in My Thanh commune, Ham Thuan Nam district to build Ka Pet water reservoir, with a capacity of more than 51 million cubic meters. This project has been approved by Vietnam’s National Assembly in 2019, and is expected to be completed by 2025.
Of the 600 hectares of natural forests that are about to be destroyed, there are 137 hectares of special-use forests of Nui Ong Nature Reserve. According to VnExpress, the forest there, thanks to strict protection, is less affected by humans, so the wood reserve is still very large. There are hundreds of years old trees. The forest will be auctioned off to logging units. After that, the province will compensate with new plantations elsewhere, at a cost of VND177 billion.
Some questions that the public raises and wants the authorities, especially the National Assembly, to have answers, are:
- Why destroy this thousand-year-old primeval forest, while Vietnamese leaders always insist that the environment is not traded for economy and development?
- Why destroy an ecosystem, which takes millions of years to form? Why not take into account the government plan to plant one billion trees? Deciding to destroy 600 hectares of forest will lose billions of trees, most of which are trees that are decades old, even hundreds of years old.
- Why destroy forests, then replant new forests with 3 times the area? So in that 1800ha of new planting, why not arrange to dig a lake there?
- If you have to dig a lake, why only dig a lake 700ha wide and 5m deep, without using the option to dig a lake with an area of 300ha (half of it) but with a depth of 12m or more? Because the narrower the lake surface, the less water can evaporate, especially in sunny conditions in the land of Binh Thuan? Perhaps the question is also the answer.
Information of Binh Thuan provincial Department of Propaganda and Education when talking about the value of Song Mong-Ka Pet Protective Forest said, “This is not only the forest that is assessed to be the least affected, but in Mong River-Ka Pet, thousands of green ironwood trees many years old towering over the beautiful and enchanting canopy.” And “Thousands of green iron trees, each over a hundred years old is worth hundreds of millions of dong.”
It is possible to use Google search engine, it is not difficult to find the price of ironwood, about VND35 million/m3; the price of round spokes is VND10-13 million/m3; price of incense is VND18-45 million/m3; price of rosewood with long life is… VND80-100 million/m3. According to the pictures posted on Vnexpress, it can be seen that most of the wood is densely grown in this forest.
According to local people, Binh Thuan province currently has 49 reservoirs. If this 600ha forest is cleared to dig Ka Pet Lake, this will be the 50th reservoir, and it sounds like something is wrong with this project. Are they going to destroy 600 hectares of forest for timber to sell?
The extermination of a 600-hectare primeval forest, with lots of precious wood, and many hundreds of years old trees, is about to take place. The exploitation of all the valuable resources of the forest, then, in short, the exploitation and trading of timber is the top thing.
According to Mr. Luu Binh Nhuong, deputy head of the People’s Relation Committee under the National Assembly Standing Committee, stated, “In recent days, I have heard a lot of public talk about the destruction of 600 hectares of forest in Ham Thuan Nam, Binh Thuan to make Ca Pet Lake. Come to think of it, there’s obviously a hydropower project behind and there’s clearly interest groups….”.
And Tuoi Tre newspaper, in the article titled “Titanium bomb crater devastates the tourist area” according to which, “in the exploitation of titanium in Binh Thuan, it has been pointed out about the planning of exploration and exploitation, processing and using titanium by 2020, with a vision to 2030 approved by the Prime Minister in 2013 with the figure of 5.9 million tons of titanium, worth $138 billion.”
Is it true that the destruction of 600 hectares of forest and the digging of a reservoir of up to 700 hectares wide, but only 5 meters deep, the real purpose is to serve the titanium mining project of Chinese investors, as public opinion in Binh Thuan reflect?
The strange thing is, that important decision, the press was not known, or known but not allowed to report. And if VnExpress did not post it, no one would know that this primeval forest is about to be completely cut down. It was not until September 4, when the People’s Committee of Binh Thuan province was about to clear the forest, that the press was allowed to report it (as a matter of fact), then people knew.
Also on September 4, many Facebook accounts announced that Vietnamese journalist – Facebooker Quoc Phan Thiet – author of the article “The forest of more than 600 hectares is about to be demolished for irrigation” on VNExpress, was threatened shortly after announcing this fact. However, just a few hours after posting the news “calling for help,” this status of Vietnamese journalist Viet Quoc was removed.
Public opinion reacted saying, “It was a treasonous decision of the National Assembly, but the National Assembly could not press the button to pass it, without the direction of the Party behind, so the Communist Party of Vietnam had to bear responsible for this decision.”
That further shows that the decision of the National Assembly, once again, does not express the will of the nation as they say, but the will of the Party and interest groups.
Tra My – Thoibao.de
