VietNamNet Bridge – Standing on a sea dyke, Duong Van Dien pointed to the lush forest in front of us, his voice full of happiness.

Dang Van Ut Em fishes with a net for shrimp and fish. He earns VND200,000–300,000 per day. — VNS Photos Phuc Son

“For the past 10 years, the forest’s development has helped reduce saltwater intrusion and protected the land from rogue waves. A lot of fish, shrimp, and oysters live in the waters surrounding the forest.”

It has been 25 years since he joined a group of people starting to grow ban trees – or sonneratia alba, a type of mangrove tree – along the coast of Cau Ngang District in the Mekong Delta province of Tra Vinh.

The ban forest is now regarded as a “treasure” by local people. It is a “wall of greenery” which protects them from rough seas, creating a safe haven for the marine creatures from which they earn their living.

“Every day hundreds of people come to catch fish and shellfish. In the months before the Lunar New Year, there are many sea crabs here. People from neighbouring provinces, like Ben Tre and Soc Trang, also come to hunt crabs,” said Dien, who heads Tra Vinh Province’s Forest Ranger Branch.

Thanks to the forest, the threat of flood tides has diminished, allowing locals to expand their shrimp-breeding businesses. The breeding area currently covers more than 1100 hectares, raking in up to VND300-350 billion (US$13.4 – 15.6 million) in a bumper harvest year.

Such success was beyond imagination for Dien and the members of his team when they started the afforestation project in 1992.

Hard times

In the 1980s and early 1990s, Cau Ngang District’s seaside was frequently attacked by rogue waves triggered by easterly monsoon winds. During a 1998 storm, waves destroyed the whole sea dyke system and swept away people’s crops and properties. Saltwater intrusion was a problem. Reports from 1975 to 1990 document saltwater intrusion in an area stretching 10km long and 100m wide.

A primeval mangrove forest in this area once protected the locality from strong winds and waves. But it was gradually destroyed by locals needing firewood. About 60 per cent of the 1,600 households in My Long Nam Commune were categorised as poor households at the time. Selling firewood was a way for the poor to earn money to survive.

Facing severe threats from the sea, the provincial authority decided to begin growing ban trees along the 15-km seashore, from Bai Vang to My Long Nam. Six people, including Dien, were assigned the task.

The 880ha forest stretches 15 kilometres within the communes of My Long Bac, My Long Nam and My Long Town in Cau Ngang District.

“It was very hard in the beginning,” Dien recalled. “We did not have seed trees when we started. We had to travel to alluvial plains along seas and rivers in other areas to collect saplings.

“At first, we managed to collect 10,000 saplings. We hired people to grow them. But then came a misfortune we could not have anticipated. All the newly-planted trees were uprooted by strong waves. It took us several days to collect the young mangrove trees floating in the water.”

This made many people think their job was so unrealistic that “it was no use throwing money in the sea”.

For a while Dien and his teammates were also afraid the plan would go bankrupt.

But “adversity brings wisdom”.

“We finally came up with a way to protect the saplings. We used bamboo to weave a big ’basket’ and grew the saplings inside. We waited until each tree grew 1.5m tall, then transplanted it to the planting areas using stakes to prop it up,” Dien said.

“We worked day and night. Whenever the tide ebbed away, we set out to plant and tend trees.”

Their hard work finally paid off. The trees began to set deep roots into the soil and were able to withstand the waves.

Twenty five years later, an 880ha-forest now stretches 15 kilometres along the seashore in My Long Bac and My Long Nam communes and in My Long Town in Cau Ngang District.

The huge benefits from the forest help locals escape lingering poverty. Local men no longer have to leave families behind to go to the southeast region, struggling to feed their families.

Dang Van Ut Em hails from hamlet 1 in My Long town. His family used to meet the Vietnamese legal definition of a poor household, earning less than VND700,000 per person each month. Now he works in the forest by day. His family has lived a stable life for the past 10 years, thanks to the forest.

 “Every day, I earn about VND200,000-300,000 ($9-13), catching fish and shrimp,” Em said.

Thach Sa Phone and his wife, from My Hoa Commune 25km from the forest, shared a similar story.

They come here every day to catch fish when the tide rises and eel when the tide ebbs. They earn VND300,000-400,000 per day: a dream income compared to the national per capita income of $2,200 last year documented by government statistics. They do not have access to farm land, but they feed their family of six this way.

Some 200 local households who do not have farmland in Cau Ngang District, plus 13 local agencies, were given 824ha of forest to protect and care for. As a result, they now have a mandate to harvest aquaproducts and to practice aquaculture production locally.

“I am breeding hundreds of kilograms of vop (Geloina coaxans - a mud clam which lives in the mangrove forests). If this succeeds, I hope it will become a new model of thriving production for those who live by the forest like me,” said Pham Van Quan, a resident of Tu Hamlet in My Long Nam Commune who was given a hectare of forest to tend. Quan also earns money catching seafood and collecting dried ban trees for firewood.

“Deforestation is no longer a problem,” Dien said happily. “People here now know the value of the forest and treasure it more than ever.”

VNS

Huynh Phuc Son