8 November 2008

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Vietnam has plans to plant 100,000 hectares of mangrove forest between now and 2015 to compensate for the loss of mangrove forest area over the last six decades.

The project, which was submitted to the government last month and requires a total budget of 2.5 trillion dong, aims at raising the mangrove forest area from 209,000 to 307,000 hectares by 2015, said Nguyen Quang Duong, deputy director of the ministry's Forestry Department.

According to the ministry, the total mangrove forest area in 1943 was 408,000 hectares, nearly doubling what it is today.

At a seminar on the restoration and development of mangrove forests for climate change mitigation and adaptation on Wednesday, Duong said that the destruction of the mangrove forests has threatened the ecosystem and environment along the coast.

He also stressed that mangrove forest restoration and development would help minimise the damages caused by storms, big waves, erosion and salinity intrusion inland.

In recent years, storms have caused 1.5 trillion dong to 5 trillion dong in damages each year, with the horrible storms in 2006 causing 19 trillion dong in damages..

The ministry blamed the alarming reduction of mangrove forest for natural calamities mostly affecting aquaculture and agriculture, especially shrimp cultivation.

Klaus Schmitt, chief technical advisor for a project of mangrove forest management in Soc Trang Province, told the Daily that it is important for the ministry to carefully balance the benefits for local people and the targeted area of mangrove cultivation during the implementation of the project.

Source:  Saigon Times Daily