The central province of Binh Thuan has benefitted from a project restoring and managing its protective forest, furthering sustainable development and bio-diversity protection in the locality.

The 5.26 million USD project, sourced from the Japanese Government’s official development assistance and Vietnamese state funding, has been implemented in six mountainous areas since 2012.

To date, the project’s managing board has zoned off an area of 4,200 hectares for natural forest regeneration while building a 15 kilometre road as part of the effort to develop forest infrastructure. Furthermore, six forest protection stations have been set up with adequate equipment to effectively control forest fires.

The project has made great contributions to raising public awareness in the importance of rehabilitating the forest and protecting its bio-diversity.

In a bid to increase the project’s efficiency, the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development is planning to integrate the project’s components with the national “new-style rural area” programme, further supporting local residents in the zoned areas.

Binh Thuan is currently home to over 317,000 hectares of forest land, accounting for 50 percent of the province’s natural land. These abundant resources play a vital role in regulating the climate in the region as well as in the central coastal areas.

However, the province’s acreage of forest land has suffered from degradation, decreasing 31,000 hectares since 2001.-VNA