VietNamNet Bridge – An action plan to conserve elephants in Nghe An,
Dak Lak and Dong Nai was approved by the Prime Minister six years ago, in 2006.
However, no considerable progress has been made so far.
Local authorities
slow in taking actions
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) said that the
elephant conservation plan has been going slowly, because localities have not
have money to implement the plan. Therefore, the ministry has asked the Prime
Minister to extend the elephant conservation plan until 2020 with the name:
“Emergency Action Plan until 2020 to conserve Vietnam elephants.”
Hearing the news, Tran Van Mui, Director of the Dong Nai Sanctuary in
Dong Nai province, said: “The elephants are critically endangered. If the
MARD’s plan is extended until 2020, I am afraid that the elephants would not be
able to wait until that day.”
Therefore, the Dong Nai provincial authorities have decided to build a
30 kilometer electric fence in the area of the provincial sanctuary in order to
minimize the conflicts between elephants and men. The project, estimated to
cost 9 billion dong, has been implemented since February 2012 and it is
expected to become operational by 2013.
According to Mui, in Dong Nai, elephants live in three areas closed to
each other, the Dong Nai Sanctuary, the Cat Tien National Park and the area put
under the management of the La Nga Forestry Company.
According to Tran The Lien, Director of the Natural Conservation
Department under MARD, Nghe An and Dak Lak provincial authorities had built up
the elephant conservation plan which had been budgeted prior to 2010 (66
billion dong for Dak Lak and 14 billion dong for Nghe An).
Meanwhile, Dong Nai provincial authorities only submitted the plan to
MARD for examination in late 2011. Therefore, the ministry could not find the
capital sources to allocate to Dong Nai, about 35 billion dong.
However, Lien said, besides the money from the state budget, the
localities still can implement the plan to rescue elephants with the money
sourced from the forest afforestation project approved by the Prime Minister.
Dak Lak province was also asked to implement the plan on elephant
conservation in accordance with a decision released in 2006. However, the
competent agencies in Dak Lak misunderstood that this was a tourism development
plan, and assigned the provincial trade and tourism department to undertake the
work.
However, as the department was incapable to conserve wild animals, it
has refused the plan. As the number of elephants has been decreasing
alarmingly, the provincial authorities in October 2010 approved the plan on
conserving Dak Lak elephants for 2010-2015.
The local authorities asked to build a hospital for elephants on the
area of 2000 hectares in the Yok Don National Park. However, the plan was
rejected by MARD, because it is located in the strictly protected area in the
Yok Don National Park.
The Dak Lak Elephant Conservation Center and local authorities are
conducting a survey in the belt area of the national park, on which they are
intending to build an elephant conservation center.
As such, one year after the conservation plan was approved, relevant
agencies are still busy looking for suitable places to set up conservation
center.
Having no money,
local authorities keep sitting and waiting
The Dak Lak elephant conservation plan has been allocated 61 billion
dong, which must be spent for five years. However, to date only 350 million
dong has been disbursed, which is just enough to pay workers.
Huynh Trung Luan, Director of the Dak Lak Elephant Conservation Center,
said that the center is still awaiting money to build two observation stations
in Buon Don and Lak districts. Each station would have five workers who are in
charge of collecting information about the elephants.
However, Luan has warned that if unreasonable policies are applied, it
would be impossible to bring elephants to the center for conservation. Nearly
all elephants are serving at tourism centers, and every elephant can bring to
its owner one million dong a day.
Source: NLD
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