In addition to this, the whole country obtained 3,115 billion VND from forest environmental services, reaching 111% of the annual revenue plan and increasing 20% compared to 2020.
However, in recent years, the area of natural forests in Vietnam has decreased rapidly, and the quality of forests has degraded heavily. In the period from 2011 to now, the damaged forest area has been estimated more than 22,800 hectares, of which about 13,700 hectares of forest burned, the rest was illegally cut down. On average, our country loses about 2,500 hectares of forest every year.
According to a report of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in 2021, the whole country detected 2,653 cases of violations of regulations on forest protection, a decrease of 13% compared to 2020. The damaged forest area was 1,229 hectares, an increase of 527 hectares. This shows that the damaged forest area has decreased compared to previous years, but every year thousands of hectares still disappear.
The Central Highlands region is still a key area for illegal deforestation, exploitation, trading, transportation and processing of forest products..
According to the results of the forest status announcement in 2019, the total forested area of this area is nearly 2.6 million hectares, accounting for 17.5% of the country's forest area. Forest coverage rate is more than 45.9%. In 2019 and the first 5 months of 2020, the Central Highlands provinces discovered 4,863 cases of forestry law violations, confiscated 9,898m3 of all kinds of timber.
Besides that, climate change has been also affecting, causing a huge loss of forest area due to fires and coastal erosion. Only in Ca Mau, in the past 10 years, nearly 5,000 hectares of coastal protection forests have been lost. According to Ca Mau Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, in the period 2011-2020, this province lost about 4,950ha of coastal forests
Vietnam currently has about 200,000 hectares of mangrove forests, ranking first among countries with mangrove areas worldwide. However, the area of mangroves in the country is in danger of being seriously threatened due to the narrowing of the area due to the exploitation and deforestation still taking place. Moreover, the winds, storms, and waves are also the cause of shrinking the area of mangroves. In addition, environmental pollution has seriously affected mangrove forests.
As the proposed plan, from 2022 to 2025, an average of 204.5 million trees/year will be planted in the country, of which 142.5 million trees are scattered, an increase of 1.8 times compared to 2020. The No. 524/QD-TTg Decision signed by the Prime Minister on April 1, 2021, clearly states that by the end of 2025, the whole country will plant 1 billion trees in order to contribute to protecting the ecological environment and improving the landscape and respond to climate change, socio-economic development, improvement of people's quality of life and sustainable development of the country.
Project One billion of trees (690 million trees scattered in urban and rural areas, 310 million trees in protection forests, special-use forests, new production forests, etc.) is one of the important premise for Vietnam direction to sustainable development, bring both benefits and economic environment.
For Economically, 690 million trees are planted scatteredly in urban and rural areas besides landscaping and entertainment, multi-use trees also produce flowers, fruits, food, and medicine, etc. which contributes to generating additional income from non-timber forest products for consumption through agro-forestry-fishery models for people to grow and protecting trees.
In addition to this, with 180,000 ha of concentrated plantation forest, including 150,000 ha of production forest, it is estimated that about 15 million m3 of timber and firewood can be generated for consumption and processing. The total area of new 180,000 ha of planted forest, is expected to absorb about 9 million tons of CO2, equivalent to a value of 4.5 million USD.
In order to contribute to the above goal, the VNFOREST (under Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) issued Decision No.60 on industry development orientation for the period 2021-2025, with the goal of maximizing potential, role and forest effects.
Six specific goals in the Decision No.60 set by the VNFOREST includes:
- The growth rate of forestry production value is from 5.0% to 5.5%/year.
- Export value of timber furniture and non-timber forest products reache 18-20 billion USD; consumption of forest products in the domestic market will reach 5 billion USD by 2025.
- Improve productivity and quality of planted forests; timber output from concentrated plantations will reach 35 million m3/year by 2025; basically meet the demand for raw materials for processing timber and forest products; certificate of sustainable forest management reache over 0.5 million hectares in the period of 2021 - 2025.
 - Developing ecosystem services, forest environment services, diversifying and expanding revenue sources; the total annual collection of forest environmental services increases by 5%.
- The proportion of vocational training labour working in forestry will be about 45% by 2025; The average income of ethnic minorities working in forestry increased by more than 2 times compared to 2020.
- Improve the quality of natural forests, the effectiveness of biodiversity conservation and the protection capacity of forests; forest cover rate will be maintained at 42%.
Mobilization maximum of social resources; applying advanced and modern science and technology, the forestry industry is oriented to make an increasing contribution to the process of socio-economic development, environmental protection, water security, natural disaster reduction, respond proactively and effectively to climate change, conserve natural resources and biodiversity, provide a variety of forest ecosystem services.
This is a premise for the forestry sector to contribute to hunger eradication and poverty alleviation, improving the livelihoods of rural and mountainous people and ethnic minorities, maintaining national defense and security, and successfully implementing the national goals on forest protection.