Young people plant seedlings in a coastal area (Photo: VNA) Soc Trang (VNA) – A mangrove afforestation campaign opened in the Mekong Delta province of Soc Trang on June 7.
The campaign aims at growing over 110,000 cork-trees, or mangrove apple plants on an area of 20 hectares of mangrove forest, worth over 1.5 billion VND (67,500 USD) in Trung Binh commune, Tran De district.
The campaign was under a 6 billion VND ( 270,000 USD) project funded by the UK’s Premier Oil Company, through the provincial Red Cross Association, which has been spread out from 2011 to 2016 in the commune, aiming to plant a total of 85 hectares of cork tree forest.
According to Chairperson of the provincial Red Cross Association Nguyen Thu Huong, the timely care by departments and support from sponsors have contributed to increasing the quality of afforestation and forest protection.
She added, the project has also helped to strengthen the local mangrove ecosystem, improving the environment while helping prevent and cope with natural disasters.
On the occasion, the province committed to 400 million VND (18,000 USD) from the local budget to finance a project to recover 12.2 hectares of forest damaged by natural disasters.-VNA
