Since 1986, Binh Thuan Province has implemented a project to plant 120 hectares of Casuarina trees on shifting sandy soils in the Chí Công commune of Tuy Phong District. Despite enduring many hot, dry seasons and sandstorms, these pioneering Casuarina forests have persisted, initially helping to mitigate the problem of blowing sand. However, since then, the coastal protective forest planting efforts in this province have stagnated.
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Binh Thuan Sand Dunes (Photo: ibiblio.org) |
With the enthusiastic support of forestry scientists, Binh Thuan Province has proactively proposed technical solutions to combat shifting sands; prioritizing investments in forestry projects to increase the area of protective forests for agricultural production, combat sand encroachment, prevent land degradation, and control salinity. This contributes to stabilizing the livelihoods of local residents. The province has also set a goal to effectively combat blowing sand in the project area, which spans 35,000 hectares, by planting 5,000 hectares of forests with drought-resistant species such as Casuarina, Acacia, and Melia azedarach, thereby protecting the ecological environment, stabilizing sustainable livelihoods for the people, and generating a yield from planted forests.
With a system of technical measures proven effective for reforesting shifting sands in arid regions, Binh Thuan Province has the capability to plant forests, increase vegetation cover, improve the environment, block sand movement, protect the soil, and enhance agricultural productivity… creating stable employment for coastal residents. However, it is unclear why coastal protective forest planting efforts in this province have not been scaled up. It is known that the sand control reforestation project in Tuy Phong and Bac Binh districts, implemented by the provincial agriculture sector between 2005 and 2007, only covered an area of 300 hectares. Some suggest that the challenges of combating blowing sand in Binh Thuan Province are due to budget constraints.
With over 100,000 hectares of sandy land along the coastline stretching over 200 kilometers in Binh Thuan Province, including wastelands and mobile sand dunes in Tuy Phong and Bac Binh districts covering nearly 50 kilometers and around 35,000 hectares, severe sandstorms frequently occur during the dry season (from December to April), with wind speeds exceeding 16 meters per second, sometimes reaching up to 25 meters per second, threatening to bury villages, fields, and roads across tens of thousands of hectares, creating desertification in the interior regions and posing a risk of sand covering National Highway 1A (in Chí Công commune, Tuy Phong district). The phenomenon of desertification is an ecological disaster that is unavoidable without proactive measures to combat this threat.
Therefore, the work of planting protective forests to safeguard the environment in the arid regions of Tuy Phong and Bac Binh districts is crucial. First, it is essential to effectively combat the 5,000 hectares of shifting sands across the entire region. This is an urgent requirement that the government and people of Binh Thuan Province must address in the near future.
Nguyễn Đức Ánh – MonreNet
