For the last two years, besides daily tasks like raising cattle and pigs, and growing fruit trees to support his family, Sa Chi Ly, a Muong ethnic man from Tan Kieng village, Muong Do commune in Phu Yen district, has taken on an unusual job: patrolling to protect the forest.

Ly is a member of the Tan Kieng village forest protection team. Tasked with safeguarding over 600 hectares of forest, Ly and his team regularly walk and climb mountains each day to monitor and prevent threats to the forest.

Villagers selected the four members of the Tan Kieng forest protection team, who work with a strong sense of responsibility. Team members take turns patrolling, but when there is a high risk of illegal logging or forest fires, the entire team goes together.

“I’ve been doing this for two years. Sometimes we are so worried that we can’t eat or sleep. The biggest fear is forest fires. Once, someone set a fire while hunting for bees, and the whole team had to rush to handle it,” he said. 

“Fortunately, there are not many major fires like this any longer. After such incidents, we actively replant trees to restore the forest,” Ly told VietNamNet.

Currently, around 100 people make up the forest protection teams in Muong Do commune. In recent years, the forest company receives funds for forest protection from the national target program for socio-economic development in ethnic minority and mountainous areas (Program 1719). The company allocates all these funds to the villagers participating in forest protection, with payments based on forest area, roughly VND400,000 per hectare per year.

Each team is assigned to take care of a specific forest area, including natural forests, planted forests, and barren land.

Prohibited activities in protected forest areas include: illegal exploitation of forest products, including minor forest products and medicinal plants; logging, charcoal burning, and cutting trees for firewood; clearing forests for farming or encroaching on forest land; hunting wildlife; and starting fires in the forest.

In the past, one of the biggest concerns for forest protection teams was illegal logging, but the activity has significantly decreased.

“If even a single piece of wood without clear origin is transported out of the forest, it will be thoroughly inspected by the forest rangers. Illegal logging of precious Group I or II timber can lead to prosecution. Many cases have been strictly handled, so people no longer dare to blatantly violate the rules,” a leader of the Phu Yen Forestry Company said.

Binh Minh