Illustrative image (Photo: VNA)The Ben Tre provincial People's Committee has approved a project to prevent erosion, planting 50ha of submerged forests to protect the Thua Duc sea dyke in Binh Dai district.
Transport infrastructure and irrigation works will be built next year.
The project, funded with the province's State budget and Vietnam's Support Programme to Respond to Climate Change (SP-RCC), costs about 43 billion VND (1.9 million USD).
Sea water intrusion, sea sand intrusion and erosion damaged about 42ha of forest in Binh Dai District in the 2011-2014 period, according to local officials.
Phan Anh Dung, head of the Ben Tre Protection Forests and special-use Forest Management Committee's Binh Dai Protection Division, said sea water intrusion had eroded 1.3 ha of forests planted outside the sea dyke in Thua Duc Commune from 2009 to 2013.
Phan Thi Thanh Hang of Binh Dai's Thanh Phuoc commune said her mother had leased 10 submerged forests in Thua Duc'sThua Tien hamlet to breed shrimp and crabs.
However, every year, sea water intrusion has eroded about 1ha of forest a year. The leased land now covers about 3ha.
Binh Dai has more than 1,080ha of forests, including production and protection forests, in Thua Duc, Thoi Thuan, Binh Thang and Thanh Phuoc communes.
The southern bank of the Cua Dai estuary in Thua Duc commune has eroded.
In the last four years, erosion has occurred along five kilometres in the coastal areas in Thua Duc's Thua Tien, Thua Loi and Thua Trung hamlets.
More than 22ha of land in the coastal areas has eroded, affecting nearly 100 families.-VNA
