On August 1 in Da Lat, the Lam Dong Department of Agriculture and Rural Development reviewed the province’s 1999–2010 project to plant five million hectares of forest.
Over 12 years, the project contracted more than 15,000 households—81% of them from ethnic minorities—to protect over 322,000 hectares of forest; planted nearly 26,000 hectares of watershed, special-use, and production forest; and regenerated over 11,000 hectares of forest through natural re-growth.
The project provided employment for an average of more than 5,200 households each year, of which 93% were ethnic minority families.
However, as coffee prices have surged, illegal deforestation to clear land for coffee has grown increasingly serious. Natural forest area has declined significantly in project zones such as Tan Thanh and Phi To (Lam Ha District), Dinh Trang Thuong (Di Linh District), and Phi Lieng (Dam Rong District).