How foreign investors have penetrated Nghe An’s forests

Since Innov Green rolled out its forestation project, 994 families of Cam Muon commune, Nghe An province have to face many worries caused by a company about which they know little.

Background: Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on March 10 instructed local governments to pause leasing forest land to foreign investors until the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) completes a review of projects of this kind.

InnovGreen tree plantation project prompts questions in Lang Son 

People worried about forest plantations scheme run by foreigners

General warns against turning over forests to foreign investors

Dung acted on the basis of concerns raised by retired Lieutenant General Dong Sy Nguyen, who protested that among the areas being leased were tracts of old-growth forest, forests in watersheds and in strategically significant border locations.

According to the MARD, ten provinces have granted investment certificates to plant forest to foreign investors for a total area of 305,000 hectares. Actually, provinces have thus far only allocated and leased 33,800 hectares of forest land, or eleven percent of the total area licenced.

VietNamNet reporters have traveled to Lang Son, Quang Ninh, Nghe An and Quang Nam to investigate the situation, and thus provide further information for the government’s reference. This VNNB article summarizes several more reports in VietNamNet’s multi-part series.

Another Innov Green enterprise in Nghe An

Since Innov Green Nghe An rolled out its forestation project, the 994 families of Cam Muon, a mountain commune in  Nghe An province not far from the border with Laos, have to face many worries caused by a company about which they know little.

Innov Green Nghe An Co., Ltd has cleared trees for an eucalyptus plantation in the commune’s Cam Village.  Most of local residents are members of the Thai and Kho Mu minorities. They don’t know where this company has come from or how they will benefit from its project when they lose their land.

Note: Often in this story, villagers refer to ‘their land.’ Readers should understand that the villagers practice shifting (‘slash and burn’) cultivation and have never been granted a land use rights certificate. Therefore province officials are technically correct when they say they did not take the villagers’ land.

Open doors for Innov Green

A village in Cam Muon commune, Nghe An province.

On May 30 2007 Green Elite Group Co., Ltd applied to the Nghe An authorities for permission to set up a company and implement a project to grow trees for wood pulp, the raw material for paper, in this province.

Green Elite Group has business registration No.298 granted by the Cambodian Trade Ministry in February 2004. Its representative is Yu Yao Hung (Paul Yu), a Chinese.

In June 2007, Nghe An authorities granted the investment certificate to Green Elite Group. It proposed that its subsidiary, Innov Green Nghe An, carry out a project titled “Planting a pulp forest in Nghe An province”. According to the investment certificate, Innov Green Nghe An will plant 70,000 hectares of forest (eucalyptus, acacia and others) in the districts of Quy Chau, Tuong Duong, Que Phong and Ky Son, investing $60 million.  When the forests mature, this firm will build factories to process wood, pulp, plywood, etc.

In February 2009, Innov Green Nghe An submitted another application, this time to the Nghe An Department of Natural Resources and Environment, asking to lease over 2700 hectares in Cam Muon and Quang Phong communes in Que Phong district. The Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DONRE) then recommended that the Nghe An People’s Committee grant a fifty year lease to the  foreign company.

In May 2009, Nghe An vice chairman Nguyen Dinh Chi signed a document authorizing DONRE to lease 978 hectares in Cam Muon commune to Innov Green Nghe An from May 209 until June 2057 for 500 dong ($0.027) per square meter per year.

According to DONRE, this area is deforested land managed by Cam Muon commune.

In July 2007, DONRE deputy director Thai Van Nong signed a land use right certificate giving Innov Green Nghe An the right to use over 669 hectares in Cam Muon commune until 2057.

Further, intervening in a border controversy between Cam Muon and Nam Nhoong communes, Que Phong district allowed Nam Nhoong to control 1500 hectares of land. Three hundred hectares of that tract was also allocated to Innov Green Nghe An.

Innov Green Nghe An has begun to plant trees on these plots.

Local people lose land to investors they don’t know

Lo Van Tho, chairman of Cam Muon commune, told VietNamNet that “at first we were not informed where this investor came from. We only received dispatches from the district and province saying that an “Innov Green Company” is leasing land to plant forest. Since then we have received no benefits from this firm and they have had no commitment or contract with Cam Muon commune”.

Cam Muon’s 5600 people live on animal husbandry and farming.  The minority peoples of its three villages there have relied on the forest for many generations. When Innov Green Nghe An came, over 300 families had to yield their land to this investor.

Lo Van Vinh, Cam Muon’s deputy chairman, said “Innov Green’s representatives promised the three villages that they would help build roads and community centers and help children to go to school but until now, they have not delivered on their promises”.

“Ethnic minority people in our commune live on the forest products and forest land. If we can’t clear land to grow rice and cassava, we will be unemployed and hungry,” Vinh said.

“Since Innov Green came, I’ve not seen any benefits, only losses, said Lo Van, a local resident.

We lost land and livelihoods. My family had a plot planted with palm trees.  When this company built its road, they leveled my orchard, neither informing us in advance nor paying compensation.”

Lo Van Tho added: “Our people harvested over 20 tons of rice annually from the 669 hectares of land that was transferred to Innov Green, not to mention maize and cassava”.

Huoi May village in Cam Muon commune has 39 Kho Mu families. Since Innov Green leased land, villagers have had nothing to do because they don’t have land to cultivate.

Vi Van Que, chief of Huoi May’s production team, said “our villagers live on the rice and cassava we grow. Innov Green has taken our land. If they don’t compensate us, we will starve to death.  That’s a fact; we are waiting for death!”

“Everyone just stays at home and does nothing from morning to evening. Today you come and see us stay at home like this, tomorrow will be the same,” local resident Lu Van Du told the VietNamNet reporters.

Some people said that Innov Green Nghe An did cheated them. “We cleared trees on ten hectares but they only paid us wages for five. They cheated the people and our local officials. They took more land than they leased,” said Lu Van Toan, chief of Cam Noc village.

A village elder, eighty year-old Hun Quang Thiem, said “now they burn the forest and [without the vegetation to retain moisture] we will don’t have water. They have not planted anything but they have burnt down the trees. I don’t understand who allowed them to do so. What will the Kho Mu people live on in the future!”

Some local people wondered why forest rangers prevent local people from cultivating in some areas, saying that would destroy protected forest areas, but nobody prevents Innov Green from destroying a vast forest.

On March 5, the VietNamNet reporters met a group of Cam Muon people who had just put out a forest fire. They said that a fire from Innov Green’s concession had spread to the protected forest. One of the dozens of villagers who came to put out the fire was injured.

“We’ve written lots of official letters to that Innov Green Company” said Lo Van Son, head of the local forest protection team, with evident irritation. “They don’t agree to anything!”

A sensitive zone?

The land leased to Innov Green Nghe An.

The land that Innov Green has leased borders on areas that are significant to defence and security strategy. The local police and military agencies have raised their voices about this issue.

In February 2007 the Nghe An province Party Committee agreed with the local People’s Committee’s recommendation to lease forest land to Innov Green.

Three months later, the Nghe An Police Agency sent a memorandum to the local Party Committee urging it to deny a license to this project.

However, the provincial Party Committee reconfirmed its original decision. On May 29, 2008, it instructed Government agencies to support the implementation of Innov Green’s forest plantation project.

In September 2008, Military Zone 4 headquarters sent a dispatch to the local authorities pointing out that five communes in Que Phong district (Thong Thu, Nam Giai, Chau Thon, Tri Le and Nam Nhoong) are in an area that is important for national defence.  Notwithstanding, the local government leased 300 hectares in Nam Nhoong commune to Innov Green.

PV

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