Central Highlands provinces need to accelerate measures to protect anddevelop regional forests which are currently suffering from significantdeforestation.

According to the National Steering Committee onForest Protection and Development, forest areas in Dak Lak, Dak Nong,Gia Lai, Kon Tum and Lam Dong stood at 2,567,116 hectares, of whichnatural forest accounts for nearly 2,254,000 hectares.

Comparedto 2008, the forest area in the Central Highland has fallen by nearly360,000 hectares, bringing the total forest coverage down to 45.8percent. Excluding areas under industrial crops, the coverage rate dropsto 32.4 percent.

The loss of forest land in the region isdue to socio-economic development in the locality, particularly aproject to use forest land to grow rubber trees and other purposes, allof which was carried out without permits from authorised agencies.

Over15,792 hectares of forest in the region were cut down for the sake ofhydroelectricity and other projects. Investors have only re-planted 892hectares.

In addition, the decline of forest land isalso attributed to rampant acts of forest destruction and landencroachment for agricultural production by ethnic groups’slash-and-burn practice or illegal migrants, which deforested 88,603hectares.

Localities have detected and handled 3,163 cases ofdeforestation and illegal timber exploitation since 2013. Reforestationin the region has seen improvement but is unable to keep pace withforest reduction.

In 2014, 13,431 hectares were planted, meeting only 74 percent of the annual target.-VNA