18 May 2012, Vientianetimes news - The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is encouraging government bodies, private companies and individuals to plant more trees in a bid to increase forest cover in Laos.

This year, the ministry hopes that between the various sectors and companies, a total of 30,000 hectares of land can be planted out with both industrial and native trees.

Forestry Department Director General Dr Siravanh Sawathvong told Vientiane Times yesterday that a total of 12 million saplings of industrial, ornamental and native trees are being prepared for planting with the wet season almost here.

Some 17,000 hectares of land have been cleared for plantation timber so far, with industrial plantations to focus on rubber, eucalyptus and agarwood, Dr Siravanh said. Meanwhile other areas will not require clearing and saplings will be planted among existing vegetation.

Meanwhile native saplings will also be planted in conservation and protected areas, and native and ornamental species planted along roadsides and in parks and gardens. The native saplings being raised include may dou, may tae and may tiew .

The department is directing its provincial counterparts to allocate areas to plant native saplings to mark National Arbor Day on June 1, which recognises the importance of trees to both people and the planet.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry sets similar tree planting targets every year, and last year the planted area exceeded their expectations. They had hoped to plant out 30,000 hectares but in fact more than 38,500 hectares were planted.

Of that figure, around 24,500 hectares were planted by private companies, just under 8,000 hectares by government sectors and just over 6,500 hectares by the general public.

The ministry also worked with various sectors at both the central and local level to rehabilitate over 260,000 hectares of degraded forest, a bit less than the 330,000 hectares they were targeting.

Dr Siravanh said “In the past, we have observed that of the trees planted by people and the government about 65 percent survive, while trees planted by companies have survival rates of 80-100 percent.”

In total, 16.5 million hectares of Lao territory is forested. Of this, 3.09 million hectares have been designated as production forests, 4.7 million hectares as conservation forests, and the remainder as protected forests.

Forest cover in Laos is currently estimated at about 50 percent, although there has been no survey in the last few years. The government plans to increase this to 65 percent by 2015 and 70 percent by 2020.