Over 20,000 hectares of forest had been chopped down for several purposes, mostly for development of hydropower plants, but only around 700 hectares had been replanted as of the end of 2012.
A review on forest land conversion shows that some 20,000 hectares of forest had been cleared, mainly to serve hydropower projects, including reservoirs and road construction. However, reports of local governments say that hydropower project owners had afforested only over 700 hectares, said Vo Dai Hai, deputy director general of Vietnam Administration of Forestry.
He was speaking to the Daily on the sidelines of a forum on forest plantations, forestry product processing and export held by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in HCMC last Friday.
He said the ministry had called for a halt to nearly 200 projects that exploited poor forests to grow industrial crops for signs of forest destruction.
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