Vietnam: Yet to be stopped is llegal logging of a rare waterfall park in Khanh Hoa province

Forest rangers in the south-central province of Khanh Hoa have proved
totally ineffective in stopping loggers from damaging a nearby
waterfall, a main attraction of the province’s popular tourist park.
The Yang Bay Tourist Park, named after the waterfall, occupies 570
hectares in the forest of Khanh Vinh District’s Khanh Phu Commune.
Loggers from outside the commune have been visiting the forest
regularly since early this year. Vo Viet Truc, chief forest warden of
Khanh Vinh District, said loggers mostly cut down big and rare trees
using chain saws.

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The district forest management on Tuesday inspected the forest with
officials from three units that manage the forest – Khanh Phu Commune
administration, Yang Bay Tourist Park and Khanh Hoa Forest Products
Company – to find many tree stumps. Truc said the district forest
rangers were yet to find out a solution to stop the logging practice.

He offered the excuse that 22 rangers of the district forest management can hardly keep control over more than 90,000 hectares of the forest, given poor equipment and means of transport. Truc said the loggers make good use of watchmen and cell phones and always know the whereabouts of rangers instead of the other way round.

Loggers hired locals to carry the timber out of the commune both on road and in the river. “Upon seeing the rangers, loggers will throw the wood down on the road as an obstacle, or sink the logs into the river to hide them,” Truc said.

“Thus officials rarely succeed in catching them.” Le
Cong Ra, director of the Yang Bay Tourist Park, said he and his
subordinates “are very worried knowing that loggers are destroying the
forest in the upper part of the Yang Bay Fall.”

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