VietNamNet Bridge – The rapid urbanization speed in Da Lat, the city of thousands of pine trees, plus the serious deforestation, have both put the forests in agony.

Pine forests disappear, Da Lat gets ragged

More and more pine trees have been chopped down in the city. One day, local residents startled in surprise, realized that the city’s forests got ragged. The Da Lat City’s authorities decided to plant the forests again. However, the land fund for pine forests has become narrowed. Pine trees now have to stand on small land plots, because they have to give place to houses and construction works.

Pine trees relocated to the suburbs

A report of the Da Lat City People’s Council showed that Da Lat lost 70 hectares of forests in the inner city in 1988-2008, including 35 hectares of natural forests.

Under the Lam Dong provincial People’s Committee’s Decision No. 959 dated in 1997, the inner city’s forests and the greenery area in Da Lat City was 431 hectares, of which 90 percent, or 380 hectares, were pine forests.

The inner city’s forests had dropped to 284 hectares by 2010. However, analysts believe that the number of pine trees chopped down over the last years was much higher than the reported one. The rapid urbanization process in Da Lat has change the city’s face and made the pine trees disappear.

In 2005-2010 alone, 108 hectares of natural pine trees disappeared for many reasons. In 2006, only 1.9 hectares of pine trees were felled, while the figure soared to 18.6 hectares in 2010, or 10 times higher.

Le Phi, the expert about Da Lat studies, has noted that the pine forests have “gone away” from the center of Da Lat. Pine forests can only be seen in the suburbs, about 10-14 kilometers far from the center. However, the forests are empty with pine trees seen only from outside. There are only few trees inside, because most of the trees were chopped down.

In early 2013, the Da Lat Urban Area service Company began implementing the project on numbering pine trees to serve the new management program. Only 8,021 mature trees were found. Meanwhile, there were tens of thousands of pine trees in the inner city of Da Lat.

Impossible mission

As the pine forests in Da Lat have been narrowed due to the spontaneous deforestation, the city’s authorities vowed to impose heavy punishment on the violators in an effort to protect the landscape.

The individuals and institutions will be forced to plant 5 trees which are 1.5 years old at least for every tree they cut down. Besides, individuals and institutions have to pay VND750,000 (a pine tree is priced at VND150,000) to the greenery fund which would disburse for the pine plantation program.

However, the regulations have low enforcement. People have been cutting down pine trees, but no one grows trees. They don’t want to grow pine in their houses, because the trees cover large areas.

According to the Da Lat Urban Area Service Company, it planted 1,500 trees in 2012 and hopes to plant another 5,000 trees in 2013. However, the success of the program would still depend on the city’s budget.

A senior executive of the company said that the number of newly planted trees is lower than the number of chopped down trees because of the lack of land. This means that Da Lat would have no more land for the plantation one day.

NLD