Farmers checking their acacia forest in Tuyên Quang Province. — VNA/VNS Photo Vũ Sinh

TUYÊN QUANG — The northern mountainous province of Tuyên Quang has gained achievements in forestry economic development thanks to introducing proper policies and mechanism.

Tuyên Quang has used many solutions, striving to become a model locality for the development of the forestry economy.

After many years of planting fruit trees such as dragon fruit, lemon and oranges without much success, the province instructed local farmers to change to other plants.

In 2010, Vương Từ Phìn’s family in Tân Tiến Commune of Yên Sơn District converted their entire farm from fruit trees to acacia trees, which brought his family a stable income of VNĐ50-60 million (US$2,100-2,600) per ha per growing cycle of seven years.

The stable income from the forest plantation has helped Phìn's family escape poverty.

“In the past, many households in the village mainly planted fruit trees, vegetables and short-term crops, but they were ineffective,” said Phìn.

“Since shifting to the planting of acacia, we have earned more,” he said.

“After seven years, each hectare of the forest could bring VNĐ100 million (US$4,300), of which we could earn a profit of VNĐ50-60 million per ha,” he said.

Thanks to afforestation, local people have developed economically.

Because the topography is divided by hills, mountains, and small and fragmented fields, for years, Tân Tiến Commune has focused on forestry trees.

As of late last year, the commune had more than 4,000ha of forest, reaching a forest coverage rate of 75 per cent.

Thanks to afforestation, many families in the commune have escaped poverty, contributing to helping the commune fulfil the criteria for building a new countryside.

According to Lý Minh Hiếu, the commune chairman, in recent years, the main income in the commune came from afforestation.

“People's lives had been improved and per capita income reached nearly VNĐ42 million (US$1,800) per year,” Hiếu said.

“Basically, people in Tân Tiến Commune eradicated hunger and reduced poverty through afforestation,” the chairman said.

The development of the forestry economy is seen as a breakthrough for Tuyên Quang to become a developed province.

Therefore, provincial authorities have issued many policies and mechanisms to create favourable conditions for people and businesses to invest in afforestation such as supporting high-quality seedlings for people, providing afforestation techniques and promoting co-operation between enterprises and afforestation farmers to expand raw material areas and develop wood processing.

Currently, the province has eight wood, paper and pulp processing factories kike An Hoà Pulp and Paper Factory with a capacity of 1.3 million cu.m per year and Woodland Tuyên Quang Wood Processing Factory with a capacity of 680,000 cu.m annually.

Tuyên Quang’s wood products have been exported to countries such as India, the US, Singapore, China and European nations.

Nguyễn Văn Anh, general director of An Hoà Paper Company, said that to create a sustainable material supply chain for the factory, the company annually provided more than 2 million seedlings for free to local people and also explained planting techniques.

The company would continue to look for new varieties and provide free support to people and commit to ensuring timber purchasing for the people, Anh said.

In five years of implementing the Programme on Sustainable Forestry Development of 2016-2020, Tuyên Quang planted more than 55,400 hectares of forest and created ​​132,000 hectares of forest for paper materials and nearly 69,900 hectares of forest for timbers.

More than 35,800ha of forest were granted sustainable forest management certificates.

Logging output reached 4.2 million cu.m equivalent to 844,000 cu.m year, which ranked first in northern mountainous provinces in terms of the output of wood of the planted forest.

The forestry production value was raised to VNĐ1.3 trillion ($56.4 million) in 2019 from VNĐ911 billion ($39.5 million) in 2015.

The province's plantation wood processing capacity, planted forest area certified for sustainable forest management and forest coverage rate are among the best in the country.

To improve economic efficiency from planted forests, the province has been encouraging investment in forestry production.

According to Triệu Đăng Khoa, deputy head of the provincial forest ranger department, the province has started the implementation of a sustainable forestry economic development programme.

Under the programme, the province will plant 10,000ha of forest every year, exploit 9,000cu.m of timbers, effectively implement management and protection of more than 422,000 hectares of the existing forests, and provide enough raw materials for large processors to produce and export aiming at increasing incomes for forest growers and foreign currency revenue for the province, said Khoa. ­— VNS