VIENTIANE, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Laos is planning to put a complete stop to unregulated logging and forest encroachment by restoring forests, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has said.
Over the next four years, the ministry plans to complete the demarcation and allocation of some 4.7 million hectares of national protected areas and protected areas in provinces, districts and villages, as well as 8.2 million hectares of protection forests, Lao Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Thongphath Vongmany said at a recent meeting in Lao capital Vientiane.
Meanwhile, the ministry is aiming to plant trees on 80,000 hectares on the way to achieving forest cover of 500,000 hectares by 2020, Thongphath was quoted by state-run Vientiane Times on Tuesday.
Other measures to achieve the ministry's goals are formulating concrete policy with regard to the growth of the wood processing industry, the participation of communities and businesses in tree planting, forest restoration, and forest management and protection.
To finance these measures, the ministry said it would consider reasonable taxation on land used for tree planting, and recognition of the right to use forested land.
Other suggested policies include the use or processing of planted trees instead of natural trees, closer cooperation between the government and the parties involvement in forest management, restoration and protection, and policy on environmental service payment by developers who use forests or impact on forests, such as hydropower dams, mining projects, and nature-based tourism.
The promotion of ecotourism, participation in the carbon trade, and incentives for forest protection officials to work with local communities were also included in the ministry's proposal to realize the government's policy on forest restoration.
Deforestation and forest degradation have denuded large areas of Laos since the 1940s when forests covered over 70 percent of the country's land area.
But the cover dramatically decreased to less than 40 percent in the 1990s.
