11/12/2015 1:23:00 PM

(VACNE) - Forests conserve soil and water, soil and water “live” trees and animals, trees and animal in return feet people. Therefore, people must be responsible for conserving the forests.

 

Interestingly, this macro-realisation is drawn from a perspective of local people, in a seminar conducted by the Center for Ressource Management and Culture Identity, on 30 Novermber 2015. The seminar was hosted in Lao Cai province, where is the moutanous area - the Northern Region - of Vietnam.

 

A picture of the seminar. Taken by CIRUM.

The realization is soundly nothing special; however, the more we think the more we agree with, especially when references to specific parameters of the global picture as well as Vietnam.

 

Forests conserve soil and water

 

The role of forests for farmland and especially for water resources has been likened to "gentle mother" that created in a lyric of a Vietnamese popular muniscian - Ho Huu Thoi. It is: "forests are gentle mother of rivers and streams".

It does so in realities of Vietnam and around the globe!

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has calculated that, over 4 billion hectares of world forest currently hold 1000 times the amount of water that lakes, rivers and streams of the whole planet gathered. Inferred to Vietnam, more than 13 million hectare forests of the country is currently keeping a mount of water that is equal to the water surface in the 392 river system and 6648 dams of its territory.

Why do forests can do the magic job? Because of that the floors of forests dense foliage, interlacing stems, combined with roots and mulch produced from the decomposition of leaf fall.

With splayed foliage like umbrella, rain water is not flushed straight down the ground, the sun can not burn the ground too, so that hard topsoil could not being washed out by rain. Yet so the FAO has calculated that the Amazon system absorbs 50-70% of annual falling rain to the region.

Forests live farming land, enriching soil at the same time. Forest land is almost self-fertilization, as leaves that fall from the trees will decompose, form nutrients, increase soil fertility. Fertile soil penetrates porous, water retention and reduction of erosion.

With interlaced trees, forests prevent floods in washing away the top soil, causing erosion, land slide, and water loss.

Due to those negative impacts, decades of deforestation in Vietnam had led to frequency of flash floods, soil erosion, subsidence, and drought, in which are always topical issues annually. For example, just in this year - 2015, the country was seething with historic flood in Quang Ninh province, and record drought in Binh Dinh province.

 

Soil and water feet trees and animal

 

Some says such as: “without soil, which trees can live with” - in the song titlely "The story of trees and land" of a popular Vietnamese musician Do Thanh Tung, or a principal science - "water is life" etc. Those says fully portray the role of land and water for plants and animal (living things) on ​​the planet.

The earth is inhabited by every species of wildlife, including many endangered species. Underground is commonly seen as "house" of trillions of live insects, germs etc – so called living things. According to calculations of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), there are around 1.000 billion living things/1m³ of soil.

An experimental study in Africa recently pointed out that, just reducing from 40 to 20 cm topsoil will reduce crop yields from 2 tonnes to 1 tonne per hectare. This is huge reduction – losing up 50% yield production!

Also from the calculation of the FAO, applying to Vietnam show that, to produce annually one kilogram of food (grain cultivation, livestock breeding and fisheries) need more than 500 billion m³ of water - equivalent of 18 times the amount of fresh water in rivers and lakes throughout the country. It is noted that the amount of water needed only constitutes 1.2% of the water that more than 13 million hectares of the country forests holding.

 

Trees and animal in return feet people

 

There is clearly a fact that: any food people used are derived from animals and plants; and ultimately the plants create food for the world animals, including wildlife and grazing one.

In value food supply by 2050, an annual average of 3 billion tons the world need food from plants and 470 million tonnes of meat to feed 9.1 billion people. This result is a huge number. With a similar rate, daily, every Vietnamese citizen needs 0.9 kg and 0,14kg rice and meat respectively. Inference these numbers to more than 90 million people now left us a huge number more about the role of trees.

Counting the calories in the human body, 50% of plants, 10% from seafood, the rest are animals. It is noted that all of the food derived from plant them because of that 33% of food production in the world is used as feed for livestock and wild animals.

In addition, the trees, in the process of photosynthesis, absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, purify the air; trees and animals, ecosystem, beautiful views etc and a lot of cultural values ​​- social - economic - environmental and others are from the trees.

Although the resalisation was formed by local perspective, but it help us in a big scale – from nationally to globally perspectives, that forests and people have a lasting relationship - in a closed circle.

As a part of the "closed circle", it seems that all of us realize that we are seriously responsible for our part in the circle - caring for forests so that forests in return takes care us.

 

Tran Van Viet: Expert of the Central Economics Comission.

 

 

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