The trial of fee collection and payment for forest environmental services (FES) has been implemented nationwide since 2012 and has so far achieved encouraging results. However, these results are still low compared with the practical advantages. This is shared by Mr Nguyen Ba Ngai, Deputy General Director of the General Department of Forestry ( Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development), and Director of the Forest Protection and Development Fund (VNFF). Nguyen Thanh reports.
Will the amount of fee collection from hydropower companies expected by the Ministry exceed what they can afford?
Currently, 23 provinces and cities have established forest protection funds, financed by FES fees. Hydropower companies are numerous but they do not contribute much to the funds.
Some small and medium-sized hydropower plants owned by private or joint-stock companies find ways to avoid or delay FES payment. Some localities have not yet received attention, support and consensus of all governance levels, leading to slow progress of establishing provincial funds and slow and uneven implementation of FES fee collection in different regions throughout the country.
Although, the years of 2011 - 2012 were difficult, hydropower companies still managed to pay fee. Currently, only plants with a capacity of less than 30MW have not paid this fee. VNFF has requested the Ministry of Industry and Trade to urge these plants to fulfil their responsibilities. The localities should actively implement fee collection in the factories in their area in 2013.
In 2012, the fund collected VND1,200 billion from FES fee. But payments to households were still very slow, weren’t they?
The ultimate goal of this fee collected is to pay the correct service providers, who are people in forest watersheds of hydropower projects.
Currently, farmers of only about 60 percent of the localities receive the money. The reason was that in 2012, the collection of funds and guidance of payment were issued late. Another reason causing the delay is the need to accurately determine the area of each forest owner in the basin. This work requires capital. In the implementation process, many localities hadn't allocated the funds for this. Another difficulty is that in many areas, forests area is fragmented. For example, the northern mountainous region, some households own less than 1 ha.
It is known that it is time for us to begin implementing a plan to protect and develop forests in the period of 2012-2020, how will the extension of VNFF help with the protection of forests?
In Lam Dong, Son La and Lai Chau provinces, some households receive up to VND15 - 20 million from the VNFF. This is a huge amount to poor households; stimulating their participation in forest protection. However, the source of money cannot support cultivation and development of the forest. Developing one hectare of new plantation needs more than VND20 million, so the revenue from FES fee does not have direct effect.
On the other hand, the amount farmers receive depends on the area, forest area receives a few VND tens of thousand/ ha / year. Therefore, the impact of the funds is not significant.
For the source of money from VNFF to meet the requirement of planting, forest protection and development, how will we improve the policies?
To effectively implement VNFF and FES payment policies, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development should coordinate closely with relevant ministries to urgently issue circulars to guide money management mechanism of FES payment; principles and methods of determining forest cover in the basin for FES payment.
The local authorities and the central agencies should strengthen propaganda on the mass media to create awareness of social change, business and the masses on the policy of FES payment.
The authorities should enlist the financial and technical support of programs and projects, and the support of international organizations to enhance advanced professional qualifications, professional staff of the management body and stakeholders, through the organization of workshops and training courses.
They should promote inspection and supervision, especially focusing on the FES payment; implementing payment to ensure fairness, openness and efficiency to the forest, avoiding a backlog in capital funds. At the same time, they should have measures and serious sanctions for units which do not pay or delay paying the FES fee.
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