Direct causes Forest restoration measures and methods

176 4. Implementation of forest restoration and rehabilitation initiatives

4.1. History of initiatives, strategies and techniques

Initial efforts at forest rehabilitation and scattered planting of trees in Viet Nam started in the late 1950s. The General Department of Forestry later Ministry of Forestry and now MARD implemented five major programmes, two of which were national afforestation programmes and one was a national programme for forest protection Sikor 1998; Nguyen 2005. Policies related to forest rehabilitation in Viet Nam from the 1960s to 1999 are listed in Table 6. Table 6. Policies relating to forest rehabilitation in Viet Nam Sources: Tran et al. 2006; Phan 2014. Number Decision 179CP Decision 129CP Directive 257 TTg Decision 272CP Decision 682B QÐKT Circular 01-TTLB Law Law Decision 200 QDKT Decree 22-CP Directive 286 TTg Decision 661 QD-TTg Decision 175 QD-BNN-KHCN Decision 245 QDTTg Decision 021999QD- BNN-PTLN Date 12111968 2551974 1671975 3101977 0181984 1995 06021991 1991 1993 3131993 0931995 0251997 2971998 04111998 21121998 05011999 Title Policy for forestry cooperatives Policy for cooperatives and expanding areas for developing agriculture and forestry in midland and mountainous areas Promoting reforestation and forest land allocation for cooperatives Policy for cooperatives and expanding areas for developing agriculture, forestry and new economic zones and implementation of permanent farming and permanent settlement Norm for designing forest management QPN6-84 Biodiversity Action Plan Instructions on forest allocation and forest land for plantation by organizations and individuals for forestry purposes Forest Protection and Development Law Land Law Norms for technical procedures when applying for production timber and bamboo forest licences QPN 14-92 Regulations on forest fire prevention and control Enhancing approaches for forest protection and development Objectives, missions, policies and arrangement for implementation of the Five Million Hectares Reforestation Programme Norms for forest restoration by zoning and promoting natural regeneration combined with enrichment planting State management of forest Regulations on timber and forest product harvesting Promulgation body Minister Council Government Committee Prime Minister Government Committee Ministry of Forestry Inter-ministerial circular National Assembly National Assembly Ministry of Forestry Government Prime Minister Prime Minister MARD Prime Minister MARD 177 Decision 47QD BNN-KL Circular 56TT BNN-KL Directive 24 CT-TTg Decree 163 ND-CP 1231999 1231999 1881999 04111999 Regulations on inspection of transportation, production and trade of timber and forest products Instructions for development of village regulations on forest protection and development National land and land-use inventory in 2000 Temporary regulations on approval of forest protection, zoning and promoting natural regeneration combined with enrichment planting, planting and tending of plantations MARD MARD Prime Minister MARD It is possible to divide forest rehabilitation solutions in Viet Nam into two groups: i reclamation and reforestation afforestation; and ii restoration of natural forests. For forest restoration, the expression ‘forest zoning and maintenance’, which is similar to ‘passive reforestation’ Lamb and Gilmour 2003; Lamb 2010 was introduced into government policies from the late 1950s until the 1980s. By the late 1980s, this expression was replaced by the term ‘forest zoning, maintenance and promoting regeneration’ shortened to forest zoning and promoting regeneration which is considered a change in scientific understanding of the forestry sector for forest restoration, focusing on regenerating biological resources by promoting natural succession Tran et al. 2006. Achievements from the study of forest restoration during this period were regulated in technical rules including the ‘Norm of silvicultural techniques for timber forests and bamboos’ QPN 14-92 and ‘Norm of forest restoration by forest zoning, promoting regeneration and enrichment planting’ QPN 21-98 Ministry of Forestry 1993; MARD 1998. These legal documents were breakthroughs in technical instruction and standardization for forest restoration and regeneration. However, they contained inadequacies in application with regards to the socio-economic circumstances in different regions Tran et al. 2006; Phan 2014. Based on these two regulations, techniques concerning reforestation and restoration of natural forests have been clearly specified for: i logging and regeneration; ii forest maintenance; iii forest enrichment; iv promoting natural regeneration; v forest zoning for passive restoration; and vi reforestationafforestation and reclamation. Among the technical solutions for natural restoration and reforestation according to regulations QPN 14-92 and QPN 21-98, the following restoration approaches stand out: 1. Forest maintenance: This is defined as silvicultural techniques for reasonably adjusting tree density and forest structure at each succession stage. The thrust of this technical solution is to clear diseased trees, poor-quality trees or trees that block commercial tree growth in order to increase the forest’s productivity and quality, and shorten the harvesting rotation. These silvicultural practices were regulated in QPN 14-92 Ministry of Forestry 1993. However, natural forest managers often did not strictly follow introduced technical regulations due to lack of implementation funds or no enforcement on forest owners Tran et al. 2006. 2. Forest enrichment: This technical solution is to plant native tree species in severely degraded natural forests. This approach has two important technical components: i species selection and ii silvicultural techniques for planting, tending and protection. In practice large-scale forest enrichment has not succeeded often. This is probably attributable to short tending time, only two to three years after enrichment planting. Enrichment species are mostly native timber trees with slow growth rates at the initial stage – they cannot compete with the competing regeneration in situ. Pilot forest enrichment models or research plots are often successful owing to thorough tending Tran et al. 2006; Phan 2014. 3. Promoting natural regeneration: This can be considered as a derived solution of passive restoration Lamb and Gilmour 2003; Lamb 2010, of which the major technique is to protect the forests from human interventions and natural incidents such as logging, fuelwood collection, grazing and forest fires. In some cases, particularly for natural production forests, it is also combined with additional silvicultural practices such as removing creepers, non-purpose trees, growing regenerating targeted trees evenly distributed in the stand, direct seeding and so forth. However, the application method resembles enrichment planting. Table 7 lists technical criteria to define degraded natural forests suitable for restoration via natural regeneration.