FGM Workshop Background Paper - REDD - VietNam

sanctions with 210 defendants. However, the number of cases brought to
trial is very low (47 cases with 52 defendants).
• Material evidences and means confiscated timber includes 25,598.9 m3
round wood (1,779.5 m3 precious wood), lumber 26,316.9 m3 (3,998.1
m3 rare wood); wildlife 12,930 individuals (with 723 individual rare) with a
volume close to 38 tons and seized several transportation vehicles of
illegal forest products.
• The total amount collected in 213 billion VND - up 3% compared with
2008 (penalties 62.5 billion VND; sale seized exhibits 149.3 billion VND,
tax arrears 0.159 billion VND; other revenue 1.09 billion VND), put to
state budget over 186 billion VND.
ISSUES TO BE ADDRESSED:
• In recent years, the situation of the violation of the Law on forest protection
and development is extremely complex, especially against people on duty
also are widespread in many regions rich in forests.
• Land conflicts land disputes between local people and business bodies
(companies and others) in several regions.
• Illegal deforestation is concentrated particularly in forests which (by the
classification) changed from protection function to production forests, and in
the forests under projects of transferring from SFE to local management.
• Illegal logging, illegal timber transport and illegal forest products processing
take place throughout in many areas where the natural forests exist,
especially in areas which are having convenient condition for transportation by
road and river, and in areas with many small-scale wood processing facilities
in and near forest.
• The level of punishment for violations to the legal documents is too soft, so it
has no deterrent effect to offenders, leading to their contempt of law,
challenging the public authorities. The 2009 Amended Criminal Law only
provided for forest deforestation criminal is the highest for 15 years and fines
up to 100 million VND.
• The handling of forest law violations was not strict, doesn’t punish strictly the
instigators.
• If the offender does not abide, they will be enforced to implement decisions on
administrative sanctions under Article 45 of Decree 99/2009/ND-CP. In many
cases when the decision is taken for administrative punishment (for example
encroachment, illegal exploitation of forests, deforestation for cropping, using
a hunting rifle ...), the fines cannot be collected , so rates of fine collection are
usually lower. The cause is that the offenders have low-income,, they belong
to families of poor, ethnic minorities, so the decisions to implement
administrative sanctions (by fine) is not implemented. The consequence is
that the effectiveness of the enforcement decision is lost. Another type of
punishment would be imprisonment.
• Law enforcement was to some extent carried out at the local level, but it still
could not meet the real demands. When a document and/or policy was
released, DARD made an announcement and sent it together with guiding
papers or technical guidelines (if any) to its belonging organizations. However,
few policy-updating meetings were held for relevant staff members, thus
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