Policies on sustainable development of coastal forests promulgated

Illustration photo

The Government has recently issued a decree on some policies concerning management, protection and sustainable development of coast forests in response to climate change.

 

Accordingly, localities review and convert the coastal land areas planned for production forests or other areas under erosion or the impacts of mobile dunes and sand drifts, into coastal preventive forests.

 

For the coastal forests commissioned to households and economic organizations that are  significant to climate change adaptation, the State will consider revoking, repurchasing or compensating for the value of the invested assets in line with law, in order to plan those forests into coastal preventive ones.

 

Localities are also asked to review and move the construction works, which affect or potentially affect the preventive functions of coastal forests, out of the planning areas for critical and very critical coastal preventive forests and coastal protection corridor.

 

The investment projects transferring the use purposes of coastal forests and coastal forest land must strictly abide by legal regulations on forest protection and development as well as the law on land.

 

The decree clearly defines that localities ensure the funding for management, protection and development of coastal forests according to the approved plans and estimates as well as legal regulations on state budget, including forest inventory, forestry promotion, capacity building and awareness raising, among others.

 

Meanwhile, the central budget ensures the economic cause expense for forest protection assignment and zoning natural regeneration of coastal forests. Specifically, the subsidy for forest protection assignment is maximally 1.5 times as much as the current average expense for preventive forest protection assignment, while the funding for natural regeneration zoning is VND4 million per hectares in five years.