Recently, public opinion is really concerned about the remarks of Lieutenant General Dong Sy Nguyen, former member of the Political Bureau, former Deputy Prime Minister about the fact that the 10 provinces along national border have rent out to foreign businesses nearly 300,000 ha of forests, including protective watershed forests and areas of vital importance to national defense and security.
Out of this total area, 264,000 ha of forests or 87 percent were leased out to Hong Kong, Taiwanese and Chinese businesses. This is not only "a miss is as good as a mile" but may be thousand miles afar and no one know where this will lead or what will be the consequences as the leased surface is too big, the leasing period is half a century and the location has a strategic meaning to national defense and security.
Independent Assessment
The Chief of Cabinet of the Lang Son Province people's committee and the Director of the Planning and Investment service have answered the interview of the BBC, refuting the concern and objection of General Dong Si Nguyen and defending the decision of the province while relevant authorities have not officially answered the heartfelt opinion of General Dong Sy Nguyen.
It is about time the public opinion raises its voice to request independent assessment the leasing process, the technical economic study as well as other issues related to national defense and security. It cannot accept the situation that regardless of whatever other people may say, it is our province's forests and we can lease out to anybody we want.
It must be asserted that the protection of forests and the forest land is our national interest that can have impact on the lower provinces and the action to lease out to foreign businesses nearly 300,000 ha of forests for 50 years is a big national issue and not just a simple matter of any one province.First of all, the effectiveness of cutting of existing forest trees for replanting new ones is still a controversial issue yet to be agreed on by international experts.
Technical and Economical Requirement
They warned that if Vietnam does not carry out the reafforestation effectively by following strict technical and economical requirement and timely (to avoid the soil being washed away or eroded by the rain when the old trees have been cut and the new ones have not been planted), it will be similar to someone "decides to amputee his good legs to opt for a pair of artificial ones". This means that it will do more harm than good, and a lot of harm.
There are a host of reasons to worry: if the new trees are not the right specie, the planting does not follow the technical and economic method and is not timely, if the company is irresponsible or not competent, if the supervision is loose, or there are loopholes in the leasing contract through which the company already reaps profit just by exploiting the timber while the reafforestation is still on paper or dragging slowly, we will encounter unexpected consequences.To help the decision process, we should start with a small scale pilot project, closely supervised by independent agency and carefully assessed before going large scale.
Implementation of Bidding Contracts
Experiences from other countries have shown that the leasing of land to Chinese companies or their implementation of bidding contracts are very complicated and not like the other countries' companies. These (Chinese) companies will usually bring big groups of Chinese workers bringing with them their own logistic and catering services typically Chinese style. They even set up their own community sector where they will use only Chinese money among themselves.The magazine the Der Spiegel (Germany) has ran a reportage about the township of Bo Ten of Laos near the border with China.
It is flooded with Chinese workers; its streets bear Chinese names; the Renminbi is freely used. The Lao living there are in fact Lao citizens administratively only while in reality they are "Chinese economic citizens".Many African countries have had similar experiences with Chinese logging and mineral exploitation companies. One may ask, with a leasing period of 50 years and a large leasing area, how big will be the number of workers mobilized for the job and how long they will stay in these regions.
These are the scenario that can not be totally set aside and which must be carefully and soundly considered before they become "things done"This is the reason why all the contracts signed by the provinces to lease land to foreign businesses on long term basis must be reassessed by an independent scientific council in a public and transparent way under the supervision of the National Assembly and public agencies.
Licensing Process and Dossiers
All the licensing process and dossiers must be controlled strictly and must take consideration of official opinions of relevant agencies including those related to national defense and security. The council will have the responsibility to propose appropriate recommendations to deal with these contracts in the name of the country and people long term interests and not of the short term benefit of a locality.
If anything dubious is found in the contract signing process, relevant agencies should be called in to clarify the matter. What should be done immediately is to draw experience from the fact that why such an important issue involving the lease of large forest land superficies for 50 years in the 10 provinces situated in national defense and security sensitive areas have not been discovered by the administrative agencies, the government and other relevant authorities?
If General Dong Sy Nguyen did not raise his concern, would the issue have been fallen into silence and what would be the consequences? The public is counting on the involvement of concerned authorities and scientific experts and is hoping that the authorities will have the obligation to answer not only the citizen General Dong Sy Nguyen himself but also the overwhelming majority of the Vietnamese people.
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