Foreign forest leasee doesn’t keep its promises

InnovGreen stated that the main goal of its long-term forest planting project in Vietnam is “benefiting the local people and local authorities”. But is it true?
After three years of implementing its project in Quang Ninh province, InnovGreen Quang Ninh sent a report to the Quang Ninh People’s Committee in December 2009, which said that it created permanent and stable jobs for local people, with average salary of VND2.2-2.5 million - $200-130 per month.
Earlier, InnovGreen’s representative told Quang Ninh officials at a presentation on February 9, 2007 that InnovGreen’s project in Quang Ninh will benefit the investor itself, the local people, the country (not clear which country), the world and the local government.
The representative emphasized that the major goal of this project is to benefit the local people and local government.
Do they invest hundreds of millions of US dollars in Vietnam to firstly benefit the local people and local government - not themselves?
VietNamNet’s reporters went to the border commune of Hai Son, Quang Ninh, where InnovGreen Quang Ninh has planted trees on over 400 hectares out of over 1000 hectares of land it had been leased.
Phun Van Huy, vice chair of Hai Son commune, burst out laughing when he read InnovGreen Quang Ninh’s report on its project implementation as of December 2009.
He laughed because the average income of local residents is several hundred thousands dong a month but InnovGreen’s report said That the firm paid salary of up to VND2.5 million dong to nearly 100 local workers.
He said if it was true, these workers earned higher salaries than commune officials, including him, the commune chair.
He said, the project initially hired 20-30 people from the commune as seasonal workers with whom InnovGreen Quang Ninh, didn’t sign any contract . But – as said above - the company’s report to Quang Ninh authorities dated December 2009 claimed that they had created permanent and stable jobs for many local people, who earned VND2.3-2.5 million dong a month, including 60-80 people in Hai Son commune.
Huy, who is in charge of agriculture-forestry matters, didn’t know much about InnovGreen Quang Ninh’s project in his commune. He only knew that the company had a permission to plant trees in 400 hectares out of over 1000 hectares of the forest in Po Hen village.
The investor started planting trees in late 2008 but not until the end of 2009, did the company invit Huy to visit the forest.
In Quang Thanh commune, Hai Ha district, Quang Ninh province, InnovGreen was allocated 80 hectares of land for 50 years and it has already planted trees.
Dang Xuan Duy, chief of the office of Quang Thanh Commune People’s Committee, also said that this project has been carried out for three years but it doesn’t benefit local people.
“At the beginning, the locals believed that they would benefit a lot from this project. But now they are sad to see the old forest, where they collected wood, being chopped down,” Duy added.
Even “contractors” who were hired by InnovGreen to plant forest complained about making losses.
Tran Vay Hay, a local man, who signed a contract with InnovGreen to plant forest, said: “They [InnovGreen) only hired me to plant a certain area of forest. I was in charge of recruiting workers. As workers didn’t have employment contracts with InnovGreen, I had to bear entire responsibility. They paid me only VND4 million (over $200) for a hectare. I made losses due to high prices for petrol and food for workers so I decided not to work for them anymore,” Hay said.
Hay said he hired 20-30 workers to plant trees for InnovGreen. He also said that most of the 400 hectares of forest were planted by workers hired from other locations, not local people.
Nguyen Van Tuyen, an employee of Quang Thanh commune People’s Committee office, said he is the only local man in Hai Ha district who was an official employee of InnovGreen Quang Ninh. After two years working with this company, he was appointed to work in another province with monthly salary of VND2.5 million so he quit.
Tuyen said that if InnovGreen plants forest this way, it will be very difficult to recover its huge initial capital.