Hậu Lộc People Committee Engineer. Trịnh Cao Sơn 1
Some solutions to protect and restore community based
mangrove forests in Hau Loc Distric, Thanh Hoa rovince

Trinh Cao Son
Implementing organization: People Committee of Hau Loc District, Thanh Hoa Province

Summary:
Mangrove forest (RNM) of Hau Loc District has occurred for ages. The area of this
forest was some time up to hundreds of ha, and distributed in four communes of Xuan Loc,
Hai Loc, Hoa Loc, and Da Loc. However, under the overexploitation, particularly under the
conversion of mangrove forest into shrimp and crab farms as happened in Xuan Loc, Hoa
Loc, and Hai Loc, the mangrove forest area of the District has dramatically decreased.
Currently, there is no mangrove forest in Xuan Loc and Hoa Loc.
Mangrove forest plays an important role to protect effectively 12 km of coastal dyke
and mitigate natural disasters for people of Hau Loc District. Therefore, there is no way, but
to develop mangrove forest to protect costal line from tide and other disasters. From 1980,
Hau Loc has used fund and support from the Government and international organizations to
promote the planting and rehabilitation of mangrove forests. However, the planting has faced
difficulty as the survival rate of seedlings is quite low, just from 10-15%, and in some period
there is no seedling survived.
The main reasons are due to the alluvial site is far from the estuary (river mouth),
where the tide is strong and the mud is not solid enough. Specially, seedlings can dramatically
be destroyed by Barnacles (shipworm) as this species sticks and damages the tree.
Furthermore, the awareness of local people is limited, so that they harvest sea food and
firewood in the young mangrove forests. In addition, the economic conversion of region has
promoted opportunities for people to cut mangrove forest and develop sea food farms, also to
harvest existing sea food as those are the main income of local people. That is why for a long

and the coastal line is 12 km. The coastal area of Hau Loc plays a very important role of
economy, politics and defence. This area has high density of residents, boasts for harveting
sea foods, and agriculture-forestry-aquatic processing products. Particularly, this area has a
system of coastal line, river banks, and infrustructures lying near the sea. Annually, the
District is heavily impacted by natural disasters, particularly from tropical typhoons. In
average, the District is annually directly impacted by 5 – 6 typhoons. The typhoon and rain
season starts from June and ends in November, in which August, September and October
could have a large number of typhoons, particularly strong typhoons.
The loss by natural disasters such as typhoons, strong tides and flood in the coastal
communes of the District is very large. From 2003 onwards, there have been many strong
typhoons, strong tides occured to dramatically damage the District. Typically, the typhoon
number 5 occured on 28/8/2003 and the typhoon number 7 occured on 27/9/2005 destroyed
and broke 3 km of coastal dyke without mangrove forests. Sea water therefore flowed into the
villages to destroy crops, houses and contructions. Thousands ha of cultivated soil were
infected by salt water, and the estimate of loss for the damage was hundreds of billions VND.
Futhermore, diseases occured widely and the daily life of local people faced difficulty.
Hậu Lộc People Committee Engineer. Trịnh Cao Sơn 3
However, it is very interesting that during that time, the 2km of coastal line covered by
mangrove forest were remained despite strong tide and wind.
Mangrove forest is a very important ecosystem of the natural environment. Mangrove
forest is considered to be a great coastal resource for the development of economy-society and
livelihood of local people. It plays as a green lung to ensure the development of the area. It
also provides local people with daily products such as crabs, cells, barnacle, fish, vegetable
and fruit. In addition, mangrove forest could maintain and protect soil from flowing by tide.
Particlarly, mangrove forest is known as “ green wall” to protect coastal line from strong tide
and wind. Therefore, it is very important for the protection of residents, their livelihood and
infrustruction.

Rehabilitate and develop mangrove forest resource in both quantity and quality, and to
partly meet the increasing demand for the firewood, aquatic and sea food of the local people,
also to improve their living standard.
Through the activities of rehabilitation and planting of mangrove forest, more jobs will
be created, so that it will improve income for local people in coastal areas. It also increases
the longevity of coastal dykes and other hydrological constructions, and to mitigate the impact
from the natural disasters.

2. Status and reasons for degradation of mangrove forest in Hau Loc District
2.1. Status
Mangrove forest distributes in 4 communes: Xuan Loc, Hai Loc, Hoa Loc, and Da
Loc. The best mangrove forest grows in Xuan Loc, then Hoa Loc, Da Loc and the worst forest
grows in Hai Loc. However, due to many activities such as the development of farms of sea
food, mangrove forest has been dramatically destroyed both in quantity and quality.
Currently, there is no mangrove forest growing in Xuan Loc and Hoa Loc.
Since 1980, the People Committee of the District has called for supports from the
Government, domestic and international organizations such as British Children Fund, Japan
Red Cross (JFC project), Japan organization for action and rehabilitation of mangrove forest
(ATM project) and CARE project for the rehabilitation of the mangrove forest. The District
has planted 464 ha of mangrove forest, of which 224 are mature forest (mostly Ixora) and 244
ha (Ixora 170 ha, and Sonneratia) and 74 ha of new forest planted from 2006 up to now.
2.2. Reasons for the degradation of mangrove forest in Hau Loc District
o People living in coastal area are poor, and their main incomes attained from the
exploitation of sea food from within and outside the mangrove forest, so that they can
damage young forests.
o There is a serious lack of cultivated land, so that local people destroy mangrove forest
for development of sea food farms.
o The awareness of local people of protection mangrove forest and landscape is limited.
o Local people lack firewood for daily consumption, also lack food to raise animal, so
that they harvest mangrove forest to meet their demand.

programs funded by Red Cross Association, 661 Project. Those programs planted 90 ha in
2005 and 2006. This forest however completely died after 1 year due to strong tide, strong
wind and the serious damage from shipworm. From the failure, we have learned experiences
to achieve the success of the current mangrove forest planting.
¾ Before the commencement of the mangrove forest planting, it is important to integrate
local authorities and people.
Hậu Lộc People Committee Engineer. Trịnh Cao Sơn 6
To organize meetings participated by local people, authorities, fish and sea food
harvesters to discuss and comment on the plan to plant, tend and protect mangrove forests.
To mobilize participation of local people to promote their experience and creativeness.
Local people understand their role in protection and development of mangrove forests. They
are also awareness of the importance of mangrove forest that provide them with benefit. This
is a very important issue as if neglect of it, the program will hardly be successful.
Local people should know all activities of the mangrove forest project. Local people
discuss and agree the schedules to plant, tend and protect forest following the general
principles from the Government.
For instance: Local people give comments on the best time to select fruit for seedling
production, and to avoid typhoons that normally occur from April in Da Loc, Hai Loc.
New forest should be planted as a bow-shaped range from the border with old forest.
This is experience from local people in Da Loc, Hai Loc.
¾ Technical transfer to participants and planting groups following the triangle method
Documents combining local experience and scientific
knowledge are applied to technical transfer/training
for groups of trainers. After that, trainers will transfer
knowledge and skills to other groups with help from
technical staff. Using this method, in a short time,
people could learn well how to plant, tend and protect

¾ Cleaning barnacles
Following local experience, barnacles annually have 2 breeding seasons. When
barnacles are young, we can clear them by hand without difficulty and without any damage to
the seedlings. Local community understands that cleaning barnacles is the most important task
to ensure the success of the mangrove forest. They are also awareness of the important role of
the mangrove forest, and they will benefit form this forest. Therefore, they are enthusiasms to
participate in planting mangrove forest despite the hard weather of the coastal areas.
¾ To ensure a large number of seedlings is not damaged by barnacles
Apart from planting bow-shaped range of mangrove by fruit in areas closed to old
forest, two experiences attained from local meetings to plant mangrove forest further to the
sea with conditions of high salt level, strong tide and wind are as follows:
o Planting mangrove forest using Ixora species

Use seedlings with their height of more than 50 cm growing in old forest or select old
fruits from old forest for producing seedlings in nursery. Standard seedlings will be planted on
sites of strong wind and tide.
When using this method, the mortality rate of seedlings is small as seedlings could
themselves protect from tide and wind. Particularly, the bark of seedlings is old enough to
reveal, so that they are not damaged by barnacles.
o Planting mangrove forest using Sonneratia
Hậu Lộc People Committee Engineer. Trịnh Cao Sơn 8
Good results have achieved from previous afforestation program and the enrichment
program using Sonneratia in Da Loc, Hai Loc. In fact, Sonneratia has long life-span, fast
growing and tolerance to high salt level, and could provide great biomass. Based on the
achievement, the District has expanded the area of mangrove forest using Sonneratia to attain
high productivity and effectiveness.
o Experience from CARE project

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3.4. Organize contests on "protection of environment and mangrove forest" to improve
awareness of local people and the young
Many kinds of contests have plentifully held in the District, such as: playing, drawing,
answering questions, and camping… The contests have attracted both people living near and
far from the mangrove forest. The contests were held in each commune, at school, on beaches
near the mangrove forest to show people the importance of mangrove forest. This is a good
method to increase the awareness of local people in terms of sustainable protection of
mangrove forest in specific and the ecological environment in general. This is also a very
good lesson for pupils to apply for their daily life and their future. The contests could also
contribute to help change the awareness and activities of local people pertaining to the
protection of mangrove forest and the environment.
The initial results have been achieved from the community based forest management
in Da Loc Commune that 200 ha of mangrove forest have been well managed by communities
of 3 villages of the commune. The new approach has been approved to be a good method for a
sustainable protection and rehabilitation of mangrove forest in the area.
Experience lesson:
The result clearly shows that the propagandism is very important to improve
awareness of local people and to mobilize communities. It is also very important that good
techniques on planting, tending and protecting mangrove forest should be also transferred to
local people. In addition, there is a need to assist community in developing a forest
management system based on communities.
It is necessary to expand this model into other regions, and increase funding for
planting and protection of mangrove forest to ensure the survival and development of the
forest.