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| Participants at the event (Photo: Gaia) |
The Ta Kou afforestation program has played an important role in the process of land restoration, preventing sand blowing, desertification, protecting water security, and responding to climate change. With especially urgent meanings in the context of the rapidly increasing degraded land area in Vietnam, accounting for 37.74% of the natural land area, the program has received the companionship of Miss H'Hen Niê and other famous KOLs, contributing to spreading information and raising awareness of the public, especially businesses, about the importance of afforestation, land restoration and protecting ecological security.
World Environment Day June 5, 2024 with the theme "Land Restoration, Desertification, and Drought Resilience" has a very important meaning, calling on the community to join hands to protect their lives through land restoration activities, combating desertification, responding to climate change, protecting water security and food security.
According to the Forestry Department, in 2021, Vietnam has a total degraded land area of 11.838 million hectares, accounting for about 35.74% of the country's total natural area; of which 1.207 million hectares are severely degraded, 3.787 million hectares are moderately degraded and 6.844 million hectares are slightly degraded. In addition to desertified lands, many coastal sand strips in Vietnam also suffer from local desertification, concentrated from Quang Binh to Binh Thuan provinces with an area of about 419,000 hectares. Over the past nearly 40 years, the movement of sand dunes has made the desertification process more serious. Every year, about 10-20 hectares of arable land are encroached by sand, leading to a sharp decline in soil fertility.
To contribute to responding to the phenomenon of desertification, responding to the Land Restoration goal, one of the main goals in the United Nations Decade of Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030), Nature Conservation Center Gaia has implemented afforestation in depleted forest areas on coastal sandy soil in Ta Kou Nature Reserve.
"Ta Kou Nature Reserve in Binh Thuan is one of the 221 most important ecological regions in the world with many rare plants and diverse forest habitats. However, Ta Kou currently has about 100 hectares of poor forest areas on coastal sandy soil, which are lands returned by people to the conservation area. Therefore, Gaia is determined to connect social resources to green the sand dunes, contribute to land recovery, limit the phenomenon of blowing sand and desertification, form forests, and expand habitat for wild species, and respond to climate change,” said Ms. Huyen Do, Founder and Director of Gaia Nature Conservation Center.
She added that Binh Thuan is one of the provinces that often suffers from drought due to the lowest rainfall in the country, so afforestation will contribute to protecting water security. Because coastal sand dunes are where rainwater is stored during the rainy season, water stored underground in the sand dunes creates an underground flow that gradually seeps at the foot of the hill. But without storage measures, this groundwater source quickly evaporates because of the hot sun. Therefore, planting forests will help limit evaporation and accumulate more water during the rainy season.
Gaia will coordinate with Ta Kou Nature Reserve to constantly make efforts to research and implement solutions for the forest to form. Throughout that process, we will summarize specific images and data about the development of the forest in forest monitoring reports and send them to donors every year for 5 years. Participating in afforestation with Gaia, businesses and organizations have contributed to responding to the Project of planting 1 billion trees in the period 2021 - 2025, the National Action Program on desertification prevention in the period 2021 - 2025, and aiming for Vietnam to achieve net emissions by 2025./.