Illegal loggers in Vietnam train as jungle tour guides

Nguyen Ngoc Anh, 36, who was an unlawful logger turned forest protector poses at Phong Nha Nationwide Park, Quang Binh province, Vietnam, April 8, 2022. REUTERS/Hoang Trung

PHONG NHA, Vietnam, April 25 (Reuters) – Vietnamese logger turned jungle tour information Ngoc Anh is aware of the worth of bushes.

For years he chopped them down illegally to promote as timber, usually working with others to hold 100-kg logs out of a quickly thinning forest.

However as excessive rainfall and floods more and more devastated his neighborhood within the central province of Quang Binh, the 36-year-old learn up on the continued local weather and nature crises and turned as an alternative to tourism and conservation.

Now, Ngoc Anh is one in all 250 former loggers skilled by an journey tourism firm to guide largely international vacationers by jungles and into a number of the world’s largest cave methods within the Phong Nha-Ke Bang Nationwide Park, a UNESCO world heritage web site.

“Earlier than, each time I noticed a big tree, my head calculated how tall the tree was and easy methods to reduce it into logs of various sizes,” Ngoc Anh stated, perched on a mossy vine thicker than an individual’s arm.

“However now that I am within the tourism enterprise, after I see such a tree, I inform the tour group how invaluable this tree is as a result of there aren’t many left.”

In accordance with World Forest Watch, Vietnam misplaced about 3 million hectares of tree cowl between 2001 and 2020 – a 20% lower since 20 years in the past pushed primarily by the commodities sectors. A authorities crackdown on unlawful logging since 2007 has helped sluggish the speed of deforestation and the nation has joined a latest world pledge to finish deforestation by 2030.

At all times accompanied by a park ranger, Ngoc Anh and different tour guides assist patrol the paths to maintain poachers away, take away animal traps and clear up any trash.

They do it for lower than half of what they earned of their logging days, however hope to earn extra as tourism and journey step by step resume.

Modifying by Kanupriya Kapoor and Andrew Heavens

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