Vietnam

In previous issues of the Bulletin we informed on the expansion of tree monocultures and the pulp and paper industry in Vietnam, under a scheme not aimed at attending the needs of farmers, villagers, or even the country’s economy in the long run (Bulletin 7, December 1997; Bulletin 15, September 1998). The unsustainability of Vietnamese forestry policy becomes evident once again: from July 1998 the Government is allowing imports of Cambodian timber, and even encouraging the re-export of both logs and sawn wood made out of Cambodian and Laotian timber.

Vietnam is currently involved in a large scale "reforestation" programme. According to offical sources 850,000 hectares of trees were planted nationwide between 1993 and 1995. Large areas of the country have been covered with monoculture plantations, often for export as wood chips to Taiwan and Japan. This scheme is not aimed at attending the needs of farmers, villagers, or even the Vietnamese economy in the long run. The Vietnamese paper business is currently suffering a severe crisis, since more wood is being produced than the country's pulp processors can handle.

It seems amazing that tree plantations can be promoted all over the world as a profitable activity, while at the same time they need to receive a number of incentives to make it really profitable.

Between 1974 and 1990 the Swedish International Development Agengy (SIDA) invested over U$S 1 billion in a project for a pulp and paper mill in Vietnam, as a way of showing the opposition of former Prime Minister Olof Palme and his government to the United States policies towards that nation. After a feasibility study performed by the Finnish forestry consultant group Jaakko Poyry in 1974, SIDA hired the Swedish company WB Systems AB to build Bai Bang pulp and paper mill in Vinh Phu province, northern Vietnam.