Day: March 12, 2018

ASEAN Environment Forest Fire Forestry International Regional RFMRC-SEA SOUTHEAST ASIA VIETNAM

Mekong Delta works to prevent forest fires

Mekong Delta works to prevent forest fires

Last update 10:49 | 12/03/2018

Provinces in the Mekong Delta have stepped up efforts to prevent forest fires as the region is entering the highly risky dry season.

In the southernmost province of Ca Mau, many measures have been put in place, especially to protect the 8,500ha U Minh Ha National Park.

Water in the higher parts of the park have been drying out since the beginning of this month and the threat of forest fire is high, according to the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Huynh Minh Nguyen, director of the park, said rangers have taken positions in watch towers to monitor the park around the clock.

They also regularly patrol the park to prevent people from entering to collect honey, hunt or fish, activities that could cause fires.

More than 5,000 families living in the park’s buffer zone and cajeput forests have been mobilized to help fight forest fires.

The department has called on private individuals managing forests to implement preventive measures against fires.

Forest management units should regularly assess the dryness to take proper fire-prevention measures and teach local households how to prevent fires, it said.

This month the hot weather peaks in the south, according to the South Centre for Hydrometeorology Forecasting.

In An Giang province, districts with large forest areas including Tinh Bien and Tri Ton are in a state of preparedness to prevent fires, said Tran Phu Hoa, head of the province Forest Protection Sub-department., adding that Tinh Bien alone has more than 6,270ha of forests that face the risk of fires.

Kien Giang province has seven areas that face fire risks, namely U Minh Thuong National Park, Phu Quoc National Park, Phu Quoc protective forest, Hon Dat – Kien Ha protective forest, An Bien – An Minh coastal protective forest, and a forest managed by the 422 Forestry Plantation Project.

The provincial People’s Committee has issued orders to strengthen fire prevention measures.

Kien Giang has 86,450ha of zoned forests, accounting for 13.6 percent of its total area, according to its Forest Protection Sub-department.

It has spent more than 10 billion VND (440,000 USD) on preparations to prevent forest fires this year.

Truong Thanh Hao, head of the local Forest Protection Sub-department, said the province had instructed local forest rangers, the police, army, and militia to work closely to prevent fires.

The province has built temporary dams and dredged wells in forests to store water, cleared dried branches and bushes in forests and established firebreaks.

Forest management units have stepped up checks and will close the forests at the peak of the dry season.-VNA

Read more: http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/environment/196976/mekong-delta-works-to-prevent-forest-fires.html

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Up in smoke: We need to pay more attention to disappearing trees

Up in smoke: We need to pay more attention to disappearing trees

Trees are dying at unprecedented rates. Can we rethink conservation before it’s too late?
ERIC HOLTHAUS, GRIST03.12.2018•5:00 PM
This post originally appeared on Grist.

Each year, the Earth’s trees suck more than a hundred billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. That’s an impossibly huge number to consider, about 60 times the weight of all the humans currently on the planet.

Our forests perform a cornucopia of services: Serving as a stabilizing force for nearly all of terrestrial life, they foster biodiversity and even make us happier. But as climate change accelerates, drawing that carbon out of the air has become trees’ most critical role.

Absorbing CO2 is key in a time where each year matters greatly to our ability to avert the worst effects of climate change: Carbon “sinks,” like the wood of trees and organic matter buried in dirt, prevent the gas from returning to the atmosphere for dozens or even hundreds of years. Right now, about a third of all human carbon emissions are absorbed by trees and other land plants — the rest remains in the atmosphere or gets buried at sea. That share will need to rise toward and beyond 100 percent in order to counter all of humanity’s emissions past and present.

For trees to pull this off, though, they have to be alive, thriving and spreading. And at the moment, the world’s forests are trending in the opposite direction.

New evidence shows that the climate is shifting so quickly, it’s putting many of the world’s trees in jeopardy. Rising temperatures and increasingly unusual rainfall patterns inflict more frequent drought, pest outbreaks, and fires. Trees are dying at the fastest rate ever seen, on the backs of extreme events like the 2015 El Niño, which sparked massive forest fires across the tropics. In 2016, the world lost a New Zealand-sized amount of trees, the most in recorded history.

Read more: https://www.salon.com/2018/03/12/up-in-smoke_partner/