Forest Management
Remaining forest cover in Sekong Province is high. Government figures classify over 50% of the province’s land area as forest, the majority of it being mixed deciduous and semi-evergreen forest, but with pockets of dry dipterocarp forest along the Sekong river valley, and pine forest in the Dakchung highlands. Much of the natural forest in Sekong has never been subject to commercial logging, but this is changing fast. Commercial timber extraction has been expanding rapidly over the past decade in the province. There is tremendous and growing pressure on Sekong to log its forests – both from Vietnamese interests (where the wood furniture sector averaged 70% growth per year during 2000-2004) and from Lao companies (who face wood shortages because of dwindling stocks in lowland forests). Up to now, such commercial logging has not been planned and is unsustainable.
Read more about this topic: Sekong Province
Famous quotes containing the words forest and/or management:
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