Vietnam advocates making local people responsible for nature preservation to effectively protect their forests.

Hua Duc Nhi, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development madethe statement at a national conference to announce the government’sdecree on special-purposed forest management that will come into forceon March 1.

According to Nhi, the DecreeNo.117/ND-CP ensures harmony between national law and internationalconventions, help to deal with the overlapping of regulations inmanaging natural resources as well as promote better coordinationbetween State agencies in biodiversity preservation.

Ha Cong Tuan, Deputy Director of the Directorate of Forests said thatas a developing country, Vietnam faces many challenges such as thedegradation of biodiversity in special-purposed forests, illegal timberexploitation and wildlife trading that leads to the extinction of manyrare species while forest planning and management work is still out ofcontrol.

However, over the past decades, withefforts made by the Vietnamese government and support from internationalcommunity, Vietnam has so far planted a total acreage of 2.2 millionhectares of special-purposed forests.

At theconference, Juergen Hess, coordinator of the natural resourcesmanagement programme of the German International Cooperation Agencypledged continued support to Vietnam in natural resources management.

He also agreed that the new decree would help to preserve biodiversity more effectively./.