The Regulation Office of the Forest Sector Support Program (FSSP) under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Office has recently established six forestry networks nationwide to support forestry development projects in the period of 2006-2010.
The networks cover seven agricultural and ecological regions that each boast a forest acreage of more than 50,000 hectares, comprising of the Northeast, Northwest, North Central, South Central, Central Highlands and South (Southeast and Mekong Delta).
These networks will serve to link and disseminate the FSSP framework on the national level, via the Provincial Reference Group, with the key forestry provinces.
Members of the networks are provincial-level leaders, among them the Head of a Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Chief of a Forestry Development Bureau.
According to the FSSP Coordination Office, the networks will bring together forestry experts, who will help carry out MARD forestation projects, supervise each locality's reporting on forest development progress, improve information sharing among localities, raise people's awareness of the need for forest protection and involve other agencies in the sector's endeavor.
The networks will form a dialogue forum on developing forest and non-timber resources among the country's extensively forested provinces and between such provinces and the Government and international partners, said an FSSP official.
The networks are mapping out strategic forest development plans in the 2006-2010 period for specific regions with which they will call for financing from the State budget, the Trust Fund and the Vietnam Conservation Fund and then provide consultation services for localities to carry out the projects.
Vietnam has been implementing a project to cultivate five million hectares of forest in the next five years.
The country currently has a total forest area of 12.8-12.9 million ha and reports a forest coverage rate of 36.7 per cent, which is expected to rise to 38-39 per cent by 2010.
Vietnam & World Economy
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