VietNamNet Bridge – Sam dat as Vietnamese call, or Siipunculus, like earthworms, can make soil porous, thus helping plants grow rapidly. When sam dat are killed, planted and re-generated forests would be damaged, because trees cannot absorb nutrients and water to grow.

The “no-enter zone”

The street restaurant in An Nghia hamlet of An Thoi Dong commune was full of people, though it was a weekday.

“Any special dishes today?” a guest said. In reply, the young man named Hai said: “We have everything you want. Shall I fry sam dat with crocus for you to take with some alcoholic drink?”

Hai is one of many local residents in Can Gio district who earn their living by illegally catching fish, frogs and picking gingeng in the preventive forest of Can Gio.

Hai’s work instruments are very simple. When he goes to the forest, he only brings with himself a mattock and a fabric bag, where he would put the spoils.

Hai is now the owner of a street restaurant, located at his house, where he sells the things he can find in the forest. The restaurant always enjoy large custom, because Vietnamese nowadays do not western styled food any more, but they like the dishes made of the natural creatures.

Especially, sam dat is a specialty of his restaurant, because the kind of worm is believed to help men become red blooded.

“Sam dat mostly live in the high earth mounds, where the tide goes up and down, in moist areas and under luxuriant leaf canopies,” Hai said. “When sam dat are taken away from the earth, they curl up like the bloodsuckers.”

Just some meters away from the place where Hai was digging the earth, there was a group of four people, both men and women, who Hai thought from An Hoa hamlet of Tam Thon Hiep commune, also working with the mattocks to look for sam dat.

The harsh struggle

Sau Xe, a local resident, introduced himself as a protector of the “green lung” of the area with 8 million people, got surprised when he was asked why people hunt for sam dat.

The old man, after taking a mouthful of tea, said: “They hunt for sam dat to sell to the specialty shops in HCM City and for export to China.”

“The sam dat collectors told me that sam dat can help men become red blooded. Therefore, the demand for the worm has been increasing very rapidly,” he said.

Thai Dac Giang, a member of the forest protection team, said that local people only have been rushing to catch sam dat in recent years, when people whisper in each others’ ears about the magic use of the worm. In the past, no one thought that sam dat could help them enrich so quickly.

The Moc Keo canal in An Hoa hamlet is considered the major “working site” of sam dat hunters. Giang said that one just needs to find one kilo of sam dat to earn the sum of money that others can earn only one hard working day.

Giang said that the massive exploitation of sam dat would make the soil worse, which would kill the forest. In order to hunt for sam dat, people have been using the special tools which can make young trees uprooted.

Giang said he and the other members of the team understand the “pain of the forest,” but they can only do a little to ease the pain.

NDT