A large area of a forest in the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai has been destroyed for months, but local authorities have claimed that they knew nothing about the incident.

Tens of thousands of hectares of natural forests have been devastated just within a short time.

The Prime Minister’s decision to close natural forests released four years ago has brought initial effects: the forests have been protected and have expanded, though many problems still exist.

Despite the PM’s decision on forest closure, the Central Highlands' forests are shrinking every day because of illegal logging.

Several deforestation cases have occurred in the Central Highlands since the beginning of the 2018-2019 dry season

VietNamNet Bridge - With abundant resources and a variety of rare wood, the Yok Don National Park is a target for illegal loggers.

The project on allocating forests to hundreds of enterprises to manage and protect to forestland in five Central Highlands provinces has failed. Forests have been lost and land has been illegally appropriated.

VietNamNet Bridge - The forests in the Central Highlands continue to be cut down though they were closed more than a year ago as ordered by PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc. 

The program of assigning individuals and households to protect forests in the Central Highlands has failed as the protectors destroyed the forests or turned a deaf ear to deforestation.

VietNamNet Bridge - The forests in the central region and Central Highlands still continue to be felled despite the Prime Minister’s order one year ago to close natural forests.

VietNamNet Bridge - The massive conversion of forests into the land areas for rubber, industrial crop cultivation and hydropower plant development led to the loss of 500,000 hectares of  natural forests in the last 10 years.

VietNamNet Bridge - Why can a lot of hydropower projects obtain licenses from agencies even though the power plants leaf to deforestation, violate forest protection laws and damage biodiversity?