According to Director of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Van Suu, 2,000 hectares of protective forests will be developed annually along the province’s coastline between 2014 and 2020.
The target will bring the locality’s total coastal forest coverage to 32,000 hectares, mainly grown with mam (Avicennia), mangrove (Rhizophora apiculata) and vet (Bruguiera gymnorrhiza), with mam alone covering 25,000 hectares.
The forest coverage in Ca Mau has declined considerably since the 1990s, due to local people’s removal of timber for shrimp farming. Local authorities are attempting to mobilise all possible resources to make up for the denuded areas.
With some 20,000 hectares of protective forest, Ngoc Hien district is leading in planting new forests and in protection efforts.
This is attributed to the district’s good planning on shrimp farming areas, which requires local breeders to ensure that farm and forest protection go well together, explained Nguyen Truong Giang, Chairman of the district People’s Committee.
Vietnam is one of the five countries in the world ranked as most vulnerable to climate change. while the Mekong Delta region, Vietnam’s rice granary, is among the three large deltas in the world worst hit by climate change.
