Forest resources and forestry in Vietnam

Forest and forestland are important sources of livelihood for the population living in or near forests and in mountainous areas of Vietnam. The objective of this paper is to analyse the change in forest resource and policy of forestry in Vietnam. In recent several years, forest area rapidly covered an average rate of 240,000 ha/year and had about 13.39 million hectares in 2010. It has contributed to the use of bare land, job creation and improvement of livelihoods for 25% of Vietnam’s population living in mountainous areas. Those results were the purpose of reforestation program and the production of wood industry in Vietnam. In this addition, government policies and regulations have provided a solid foundation for development of the forest plantations and conservation of forest ecosystems though forest land allocation and lease to organizations, households, and individuals. Therefore, the forest utilization has motivated by both environmental and commercial factors in Vietnam based on dividing into three forest categories: special use, protection and production forests. However, the development strategy of forest management plan is the difficulties associated with conflicting land claims and boundary disputes due to the value of the established forest.