Thousands hectares of forest in the central highlands province of Kon Tum are facing extinction as the local authorities are determined to construct a road that seems of little benefit to travellers.

Road construction at protected forest

The road project, invested by the provincial Department of Transport, was started since 2009 with an estimated cost of over VND1.3trn (USD59m).

The 59km-long road will connect the districts of Tu Mo Rong, Dak Glei and Kon Plong and help to boost the local economy.

However, the road travels through the least populated areas and would have little traffic. It will also coincidentally run straight through the protected forest of Tu Mo Rong.

This would mean the chopping down of large and potentially valuable trees.

The remaining tree stump

In March, the management board of Tu Mo Rong Protected Forest halted the construction. Only after the construction was halted did Kon Tum People's Committee decide to issue the decision to convert 6.7ha of forested land to build road.

But while the decision wasn't issued, the construction unit had already resumed the work.

A forest ranger said they were facing a serious situation with large numbers of trees being cut down just in the past few years.

He expressed worry that the road would coincidentally appear to make it easier for illegal loggers to transport wood and escape from the rangers.

Tu Mo Rong forest is losing its trees

Nguyen Kim Phuong, deputy head of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development acknowledged the concerns from the forest ranger unit that the forest would cease to exist when the road was completed.

He also said it was a very strange decision to construct the road as the route is sparsely populated.

The Department of Transport said the project was handed to them by the provincial People's Committee hence they only fulfilling their duty and the responsibility of forest management and protection belonged to other agencies.

According to the department, they only worked within the permitted area.

When being asked should they destroy the forest while the Central Highlands was facing with severe drought, in a written response, the Department of Transport said, "Building infrastructure helps transform Vietnam into an industrial country and the road will shorten the travelling time within communes."

Dtinews