Protecting and developing forestry is one of the key solutions tosustainable poverty alleviation, which ought to be built into policiesbenefiting all residents in mountainous areas.
Deputy Prime Minister Vu Van Ninh made the statement while chairing aconference in Hanoi on February 2 to discuss the draft resolution onforestry protection and development in line with poverty reduction forethnic minorities through 2020.
The Ministry ofAgriculture and Rural Development has drafted the resolution, whichstipulates doubling State support to 400,000 VND per hectare annuallyfor special-use and protective forests.
The Statewill also facilitate forest rehabilitation with financial amountscorresponding to the intensity of the initiatives: 1 million VND perhectare annually within 6 years for low-intensity efforts; and 2 millionVND per hectare annually within the first three years and 1 million VNDper hectare annually for the next three years for more intensiveprojects; as well as reforestation efforts for timber production.
Deputy Prime Minister Ninh asked ministries and relevant sectors toreview current policies on forest protection and development to addressshortcomings and improve enforcement efficiency.
Headded that the draft resolution should encourage residents to make fulluse of forest land for developing production and livestock with byoffsetting interest costs from bank loans.
He saidthe State has adopted a number of policies in the field, noting the rateof poor households in remote, sea, island and border areas has reducedby over 5 percent annually, 1 percent above the yearly target. However,the proportion of poverty-stricken families in ethnic minorities remainsas high as 50 percent, he added.
At the conference,participants agreed to issue specific legal documents and suggestedexpanding the target beneficiaries for households of the Kinh ethnicmajority group living under the poverty line and ensuring equalitybetween forest-covered and non-forest-covered ethnic minority areas.-VNA