Investigating the lease of forest lands to foreign developers of tree plantations, VietNamNet reporters travelled also to Lang Son province on the border with China.
 |
Lanh Van Nga pointed to the 60ha forest where InnovGreen plants eclyptus. Nga said he would not give his forest land to this company, but keep it to his children. |
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’s (MARD) completes a review of projects of this kind.
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.
Part 2 (Lang Son): “I know that I was cheated”
Believing its promises of high compensation, improved roads, electricity jobs for local people, many in Dong Quan commune in the northern mountain province of Lang Son agreed to hand over forest land to InnovGreen, a Hong Kong company.
However, they now have realized that they made a blunder. They haven’t seen any benefits from the project. Even their wages have not been paid. Others are more fortunate. They refused to sign over forest land to this foreign investor because they werere afraid that their families would lose all resources that support their livelihood.
Dong Quan is a poor mountain commune in Loc Binh district, Lang Son province. Residents grow a bit of rice on dry fields, but mainly they live on products they can gather from the forest. In 2007, InnovGreen came to lease forest land for 50 years to grow eucalyptus trees. The Hong Kong company promised to build facilities and offer jobs to local people. Many families, but not all, handed over their land to this firm, said Vi Van Mai, chief of Song Sai village in Dong Quan commune.
VietNamNet reporters visited Ly Thi Thiet, who handed over 3.8 hectares of forest land to InnovGreen. “Yes, I gave them my land to grow eucalyptus and now I know that I’m cheated,” she said.
According to Thiet, InnovGreen employees and officials of Dong Quan commune visited her family and promised to pay compensation for land and trees and to recruit her family members as their workers with high salary. Believing in their promises, Thiet transferred her pine forest to InnovGreen and planted eucalyptus on this land with the wage of 100,000 dong per day. But five months since she allocated her forest to this company, the women has not been paid what’s due her for planting the trees, let alone compensation for her land and pines.
 |
Giving her land to InnovGreen, Thiet is bare-handed. |
Thiet led VietNamNet reporters to a hill planted with eucalyptus, planted she said by herself and Song Sai villagers for InnovGreen. “They (InnovGreen) pledged to pay wages on January 28 but they didn’t. They only advanced several hundred thousand dong. We have not received compensation for our land yet because local officials say that though my family exploited that land, we don’t have the land use right certificate,” Thiet said.
Similarly, Be Thi Cau gave 3 hectares of pine forest to InnovGreen and planted eucalyptus for them but she has not been paid wages nor compensation yet.
“We gave them our land and we become hired labour for them. But after we planted eucalyptus, they don’t pay us wages due. When we asked them about compensation for land and trees, local officials told us that we are not compensated because we don’t have land use rights certificates. Now we don’t know how to live,” Cau said.
This is the typical situation of dozens of families in Song Sai village.
Meanwhile, some families who were more cautious did not hand over their land to InnovGreen. They reasoned that every inch of land is an inch of gold and that losing land is losing a livelihood.
Lanh Van Nga, also from Song Sai village, said that in the winter of 2007-08, InnovGreen’s representatives and local officials visited him in his home. They asked his family to give 3.1 hectares of forest land to InnovGreen but his family didn’t agree.
“I didn’t agree because if that company leases land for 50 years, my children will not have land to work. Without forest land we will starve to death because apart from several hundred square meters of rice paddy, we mainly live on forest land,” Nga said.
Vy Van Y, another Song Sai villager, said that his forest land is where he grazes cattle. The pine trees there will be assets for his children in the future.
Other families shared Nga and Y’s opinion and they didn’t give up their land to InnovGreen.
Colonel Hoang Cong Ham, the Chief of Staff of the military headquarters of Lang Son province, jumped when VietNamNet’s reporter told him that a foreign company has leased 63,000 hectares of land to grow trees in Lang Son province for the next 50 years.
Ham said that he has not received even a line of information about this project. He said that the Lang Son military headquarters would reject any reforestation which directly affects defence and security.
“We surprised to know that a foreign company has leaser forest land for up to 50 years. The area along the border must be green and be controlled by Vietnamese people. This leasing business is really a problem,” Ham said.
Ham said he is upset because normaly local officials discuss very carefully projects for the next five to ten years. Now this project may continue for up to 50 years, but the military doesn’t know about it.
He said the provincial military headquarters would analyze this project’s impact on defence and security concerns . |
VietNamNet reporters met Dong Quan commune officials to learn about the situation.
Dong Quan’s chairman Vi Sy Phong said that the province and district governments have allowed the Hong Kong company to grow forest in Dong Quan. This company also is planting forest in three other communes in Loc Binh district.
Phong confirmed that InnovGreen has grown 60 hectares of eucalyptus in the commune. They hired local people on oral contracts, via several contractors. Some contractors have paid 65 percent of the wages promised to local people.
Meanwhile, some local people said that while they worked for InnovGreen, the firm paid several hundred thousand dong in advance but it still owes them some money and they don’t know when it will pay the rest.
Dong Quan commune has 974 families, totaling 4500 residents living in 7 villages. InnovGreen has surveyed and leased 1,390 hectare of forest land in four villages: Song Sai, Ban Nung, Na Lau and Phieng Et. Song Sai and Phieng Et are remote and isolated villages that have neither roads nor electricity.
VietNamNet reporters asked local officials why InnovGreen was allowed to plant eucalyptus forest on a trial basis in Dong Quan. Commune chairman Vi Sy Phong said that this project is not yet established yet but the province and district governments permitted this investor to grow forest here.
Initially Phong told VietNamNet that he didn’t know whether the provincial authorities licenced InnovGreen to plant forest or not, but after a while he said that this project is not licenced by Lang Son province.
He said that the provincial government told districts to instruct communes to survey forest land to submit to the province government for consideration as licensed forest projects. Though this task is not finished, the foreign investor has planted trees already.
“Recently the Department of Natural Resources and Environment (of Lang Son province) said that though they have not yet been licenced but still to let them (InnovGreen) plant forest,” Phong added.
The commune official said that InnovGreen came to Dong Quan commune in 2007 to survey forest land for leasing. “They told us that they would lease forest land to establish a tree plantation for 50 years. They would hire local people based on yearly contracts to plant trees and protect the forest. When they sell products, they will share profit,” Phong said.
Phong also said that the investor promised to build roads and power grids to the two remote villages of Song Sai and Phieng Et. They also pledged to build public works like community centers and schools as well as offer jobs for local people.
Vi Thi Khoan, who is in charge of land management in Dong Quan commune, said “I attended a meeting about this project on May 28, 2009. Officials of the Lang Son Department of Agriculture and Rural Development spoke. They said that they completely agreed with InnovGreen’s project and allowed them to plant forest. I asked them how can they grow forest without a licence.”
The foreign investor not only owes wages to local people but also hasn’t kept its promise to build infrastructure. The seven kilometer road from Na Xa village to the forest area where the project is being implemented is not built yet because of problems related to site clearance and compensation.
Vi Thi Lo, a Na Xa villager who had to sell 2000 square meters of pine forest to make way for the construction of this road, said: “Last year we agreed to give our land so a road could be build. They (InnovGreen) promised to pay compensation before 15 October 2009 but they didn’t pay then so we haven’t allowed them to build the road”.
Vi Thi Khoan, who is in charge of land management in Dong Quan commune, said that Dong Quan commune has received two maps showing InnovGreen forest leases from the provincial and district governments. However, Khoan and the chairman of Dong Quan commune have not put their signatures on that map because the commune has not yet liquidated two previous forest growing projects on the same land.
Before it agreed to lease land to InnovGreen, Lang Son province implemented a project in 2004 to establish a pulpwood plantation to serve a paper factory but this project was a failure. After that the provincial government hired people in Song Sai and Na Lau to plant 225 hectares of pine trees. However, after they planted the pines, 60 local families were not paid for their work. This area of pines is now under the management of local people, but they don’t have land use rights certificates.
Vi Thi Khoan said that this project is not liquidated yet. Another afforestation project totaling 661 hectares in Ban Nung and Phieng Et villages is not liquidated either.
Though old projects are not liquidated and local people hadn’t received their wages yet, Dong Quan commune was instructed to assist InnovGreen to implement a new project that overlaps the old ones. For this reason, Dong Quan commune officials hesitate to sign the the maps.
That doesn’t mean that InnovGreen has failed entirely to build promised infrastructure works. Notably, Lang Son province approved its plan to build a 38 hectare training ground in Dong Quan commune, which is one kilometer from the Dong Quan commune People’s Committee.
InnovGreen also has planted monoculture forest in three other communes – Huu Lan, Minh Phat and Nam Quan – on a trial basis.
VietNamNet questioned Lang Son province officials about this project. Joining the talk were province vice chairman Nguyen Van Binh, deputy director for agriculture and rural development Vu Trung Bac, deputy director for planning and investment Duong Van Chieu and deputy director for natural resources and environment Nguyen Van Khanh.
VietNamNet: Why did Lang Son province allocate such a large area of forest land to a foreign company? What are the terms of the licencing project? Why didn’t the local government allocate forest land to local people instead of to a foreign investor who turns local residents into hired labourers on their own land?
Nguyen Van Binh: Lang Son develops and takes care of the forest with State funds, which are appropriated on an annual basis. Annually we plant around 3000-4000 hectares of forest. This year the state budget allocated us around 31 billion dong (less than $2 million) for this task.
The state funding for reforestation is limited so Lang Son mobilizes capital from other economic sectorsas well. The total area of newly planted forest is around 10,000-11,000 hectares a year.
The province grants licences to a foreign investor based on survey sconducted and submitted by the investor and the authorities of related villages and communes. I confirm that the foreign investor is not allocated watershed forest land because that type of land is controlled by the state.
The licencing process had the involvement of the provincial army headquarters and border guards.
Vu Trung Bac: Lang Son has 640,280 hectares of forest land, of which 250,000 hectares has been logged and cleared. The land area is vast and the human resources requirement is huge but the state funding and local budget for reforestation is limited, so we need to mobilize capital from local and foreign investors.
VietNamNet: Why was the forest investor allowed to plant trees even though its lease has not yet been approved?
Nguyen Van Binh: Our viewpoint is that when investors have been licenced, they must mplement their projects.
VietNamNet: When investment licences are granted to foreign companies, does the local government pay attention to defence and security interests in addition to economic purpose?
Nguyen Van Binh: We are the ones who defend the border so defence and security must be the top priority. The foreign investor is only allowed to plant forest, not anything else.
VietNamNet: Did the local administration ask the opinion of defence and security agencies related to this project?
Binh: Of course yes. There were members of the local army, the local military headquarters and the border guard foreces in the committee that considered and approved this project.
VietNamNet: The Lang Son military headquarters told us that they don’t know about this project. How can you explain that?
Binh: We are exchanging information (he smiles) and I confirm that we obeyed the right process.
VietNamNet: You confirmed that defence and security must be the top priority. What’s the basis of your belief that leasing forest land to a foreign company for 50 years will not harm our security?
Binh: Ensuring security is the job of the army and border guards. I can only tell you that it’s the top priority. I can’t say what locations are sensitive in terms of defence and security. That’s the job of military agencies, not forest management agencies.
VietNamNet: You signed the investment certificate for InnovGreen in Lang Son province. As the province vice chairman, why don’t you answer whether security agencies participated in the decision on this project or not? If they did, what documents show it?
Binh: I’ve said that the project evaluation process must be correct. I’ll have to review the documents because this project has been implemented for several years already.
VietNamNet: For sensitive projects like this, did Lang Son think of reporting to the central authorities and seeking their opinions?
Binh: It’s the right of each province to grant licences to projects within our area of competence.
|
Duy Tuan – Vu Diep
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
