The People’s Court of Da Lat City has sentenced Mbon Mi Na (born 1977), a resident of Hamlet 2, Ta Nung Commune, to five years in prison, and her younger brother Mbon Ha Phill (born 1985) to four years in prison for the crime of destroying protected forest. The two defendants were also ordered to jointly compensate more than 34.5 million VND for damages.
According to the indictment, lacking farmland for cultivation, from November 2010 to March 2011 Mi Na entered the Ta Nung protective forest and used a machete to cut down trees. She later enlisted Ha Phill to help; together they used hand saws to fell 117 trees with diameters ranging from 18 to 33 cm over an area of 7,233 m².
On March 30, 2011, Mi Na asked her sister Đia Nia to cut smaller trees and clear those already felled. At that point, forest rangers and Da Lat City police caught them in the act. The Ta Nung Protective Forest Management Board reported that Mi Na and Ha Phill had actually cut down a total of 1,977 forest trees, amounting to nearly 70 m³ of timber.
Despite knowing that the Ta Nung protective forest was under strict management and logging was strictly prohibited, the defendants deliberately destroyed a large area of forest land. For these serious violations, the court imposed the above prison sentences.