NA passes amendment to forestry law

National Assembly members approved an amendment to the Forestry Law on 24 December 2007, after a debate to address disparities that have caused disagreements among officials and a rise in the illegal logging trade.

Under the new law, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is no longer permitted to become involved in any wood- Processing activities, as I has done in the past.

Wood-processing will remain the sole responsibility of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, which will inspect and check factories involved in the processing of timber (Phase III), the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is now designated to inspect, Phase I (trees in the forests) and Phase II (the transport of trees).

Assembly members said the forestry inspection system had been unclear and complicated in the past, as officials from several different sectors were jointly responsible for checking timber, which led to officials passing responsibilities onto each other when things went wrong.

They said the new law would permit a balance between logging and the preservation of natural resources, but that its success would depend on the implementation of the law.

The Deputy Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Dr Ty Phommasak, said his ministry had transferred the responsibility of managing he country’s sawmills to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in 2005, but only now has this been accurately stipulated within the legislation.

Party Secretary for Agriculture and Forestry Khamchen Vongphosy said the new law will not allow authorities at the district level to approve logging permits for construction and business purposes. This will now be restricted to provincial and central authorities to reduce ongoing illegal logging operations.

The new law marks the end of the government’s policy of allocating timber quotas to poorer villagers and officials with which to build new houses, but does allow for the provision of other goods and monetary assistance instead.

This policy, enforced since 1996 when the Forestry Law was first enacted, caused many difficulties for the authorities, as poor families who were given quotas often sold the timber to business operators, members said.

Illegal logging has been the most important topic of interest for members of the public calling the NA telephone hotline during this session.

Laos once enjoyed one of the World’s highest rates of forest coverage; in 1940 forests covered 70 percent of the country’s land, spanning a total of 17 million hectares. This figure dropped to 41 percent in 2001.

Officials were unable to give exact figures of the country’s current forest coverage, but some estimates claim a out four to six percent of the country’s native forests have been lost in the last five years.

            This is the second amendment to the Forestry Law. The first amendment was in 2004. (Vientiane Times)