Mangrove forest conservation and development planning
in Nghe An Vietnam
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSION
4.1. Current status of Mangrove forest at study area
The survey was carried out with 37 coastal communes of Nghe An province. Mangrove
forest area was recorded by GPS. Together with digital map, secondary data and satellite
image, current status of land use can be displayed (table 1).
Table 1: Status land use in Nghe An province

Figure 1: Mangrove distribution and planning
in Cua Lo
Nghe An province ha
819.63 ha mangrove forest. It
distributed mainly on both sites
the rivers flowing through six
estuaries (Mai Giang, Hoang Mai,
Thai, Bung, Lam River and Le
Dynasty Channel).
There is a very diverse
composition of mangrove species
before 1985. Due to rapid shrimp
farming development, the
mangrove as well as aquatic
resources have been over exploitated. In
1994 with the support of Japanese Red
Cross Association, Nghe An province coastal area was carried out mangrove replanting with
some successful results.
On the deposition sites of estuaries Con, Quyen, Thoi, Van Avicenniaceae is dominant
because suitable salinity (25 30), and sand ratio is high as well. In the inter-tidal lands,
the rich organic clays mangrove species are more diverse: Rhizophora stylosa, Bruguiera
gymnorhiza, Kandelia candel. In some areas, there are species of Aegiceras corniculatum or
Acanthus ilicifolius. Upper tidal areas are dominated by Ipomaea pes-carpae creating a fresh
carpet along the coast. In the higher areas such as the areas closed to mountains or dykes
dominance species are Acrosstichum aureum, Clerodendron inerme, Pandanus tectorius,
Pluchea indica, Caesalpinia bonduc and other botanical carpets.
In the high tidal range areas Bruguiera gymnorhiza is dominantly seen with mangrove
tree up to 3.5 m high and the bush is 5 m wide in diameter. Root systems is strongly
developed, it is the winner in the competition with other species and become purebred. In the
high tidal areas, the mangrove community includes the following species: Excoecaria
agallocha, Cynodon dactylon, and Cyperus malaccensis. In the acid soil areas, salinity is
about 5 - 15 like Hung Hoa, Quynh Dien the dominance species is Sonneratia caseolaris
the height of tree is about 8 m and this is the indicator species of brackish water areas.
In general, mangrove species have not changed much; however, the botanical carpet
has changed from rich primitive cover (in 1985) to secondary botanical cover, brush or
planted forests. Some places were clearly replaces by shrimp ponds like Quynh Lien 3.6 ha.
4.2. Institutional mechanism for rehabilitation and management
To identify the area and distribution of new planted mangrove, following aspects
should be well considered: 1) natural conditions, 2) local management capacity and other
stakeholders; 3) current and future trend of land use.
Recently, mangrove forest in Nghe An has been managed by the Province Red Cross
Association. The reason is Japanese Red Cross supported for this project through the
Provincial Red Cross. However, by the management point of view, mangrove forest in the
province have to manage by the provice (By this structure Agriculture and Rural
Development Department - DARD will manage mangrove forest within the province area). In
fact Red Cross Association limited power and authority have many difficulties to implement
mission.
Development policies
Mangrove conservation and reforestation is one of government policies. Other
government policies have been also issued for poverty alleviation and rural development
affecting mangrove forest management. For example, development sea products export
policy initialize mangrove forest cutting down to build shrimp ponds. From the example,
there is a need to calcify cross-cutting issue development policies to ensure the sustainable
development.
Laws system impovement and enforcement
Based on laws of forest protection, environmental and natural resource conservation,
many decisions and regulations are issued by the government. However, those issues
documents are so general and have been applied differently by locals. There is a need to issue
more papers that are suitable to the current status of the specific area. Laws, decision and
regulation need to desseminate to local authorities and the farmers as soon as posible. The
importance of mangrove forests ecosystem should be awared by local people. Punishment
should be done stricly when individuals or groups violate the regulations.
Management mechanism
There are many questions associating to the mechanism of mangrove forest
management should be answers. They mainly are why mangrove management fails in
Vietnam? The answers would be: rights and responsibilities are not cleary defined on land
use. For example, what are responsibilities of involved parties in mangrove planning process
if the plan failed to be implemented? Or how resource in the forest should be exploited and
who have the right? What sacsion will be applied for the individuals who violate the forest
protection regulation? Problems would be solved if mangrove is managed by local authorities.
Farmers, mainly people who live in mangrove forest areas and their living depend on the
forest such as fishing men; shrimp farmers will be given task of mangrove management.
Rights and interests to those people are resource exploitation such as fish, firewood, and
wood. Each area wills has proper regulation that is suitable to specific conditions.
Management capacity
One reason of unsussessful in mangrove forest management is the management
ability/skills of all authority administrative levels. So in order to get the harmoniuous
development of all economic sector in coastal areas there is a need to have qualified
managers. The managers need to have a synthetic knowledges they should understand the
development of one economic sector not harm to the others. The management ability is not
easy to upgarde in the short time, so there is a need to have suitable education stratergy or
training
Local people awareness
There are some recommended solutions in order to improve local people awareness that
are to diseminate promotion broucher to local people the importance of mangrove forest and
mangrove ecosystem with their living conditions. Training courses are needed in order to
promote the important of mangrove forest and mangrove ecosystem to local people. Integrate
the environment protection, mangrove forest conservation and rational natural resource uses
education in to school. To mobilize mangrove forest protection plans in youths, students
community. In the mangrove forest planing, it is need to have a fund to manage, promote and
develop the mangrove area.
Incomes from shrimp farming
There is attractive income from shrimp farming. However, lessons come from other
countries having higher development in shrimp farming other than Vietnam. In Taiwan,
shrimp farming has breakdown in 1987. In Thailand, Indonesia and the Philipine there were
disease bloom in the early of the 90s, and its serious accompanied crop loosing. Because of
this damage the government of these countries has new views on shrimp industry; many
shrimp ponds were left abundance for a long time in order to restore soil.
Recommended mangrove management framework
From the above discussion and analyzing, the outputs come up with managment
framework for mangrove forest in Nghe An province, it displayed as figure 2 below.

Figure 2: Recommended mangrove management framework
4.3. Proposal for mangrove rehabilitation
Based on the potential tidal areas and the biological characteristics as well as
institutional factors discussed above, the potential of 254.8 ha mangrove can be rehabilitated,
which is allocated and planned in table 2 and table 3. Beside, 819.6 ha of mangrove forest
available should be conserve and managed in continuation.
Table 2: New planted areas
of mangrove forest

Figure 3: Mangrove distribution and planning in Quynh
Loc, Quynh Phuong communes
Table 3: Implementing schedule
5. CONCLUSION
The results can be summarized as: Nghe An has total 819.6 ha of mangrove forest,
accordingly, by district are Quynh Luu 343.8 ha, Dien Chau 260 ha, Nghi Loc 160 ha and
Vinh 55.8 ha. Newly planned planting areas encompass 254.4 ha. There is a very high species
diversity in the mangrove forests of Nghe An, with 39 species belonging to 19 different
families being identified. In general, mangrove species distribution is Rhizophora stylosa,
Kandelia candel, Bruguiera gymnorhiza, Avicennia marina and Sonneratia caseolaris. The
application of Remote Sensing and GIS in data collection, data analyzing and constructing
planning maps brought excellent results. Current maps and planning maps were built with the
scale of 1:10,000. The project also developed planning implementation, conservation and
development guidelines based on the local conditions.
6. REFERENCE
- Ho Pham Hoang, 1991 1993. Vietnamese plants volume I, II, III.
- Hong Phan Nguyen,1991. Vietnam mangrove forest cover. PhD Dissertation .
- Ke Le Kha et al,1969 1976. Common seen plants in Vietnam volume I VI.
- Tang Vu Trung,1994. Vietnam estuaries ecosystem exploitation and uses page 251 254.
Science and Technology Publishcation13.
- Umali R.M. et all 1987(Editorial board). UNDP/UNESCO, Mangrove of Asia and the
Pacific: Status and mangement, 538p.