Around 300,000ha of bare hills in Vietnam will be covered with green thanks to an afforestation project, which is said to be the largest so far. The project was initiated by Steve Chang, who is called the “Asian Bill Gates”.
Dean Wu, General Director of InnovGreen, which is implementing this project in Vietnam, talks about the project.
Why did you think of planting forests in Vietnam?
We see that Vietnam has vast vacant, unproductive forest land. Vietnam has many unused natural sources and it lacks capital to invest in this field.
There are three advantages in Vietnam that are good for this project. They are good weather, spacious unused forest land, and an abundant workforce.
We also see that the global environment is getting hot and we lack trees, but in many developing countries where there are rich resources, they invest in building factories. So we want to be an example of a business that makes the environment green.
What is the purpose of this project? Where will the project be carried out and how did you choose the places?
We selected areas where there are many unused bare hills. We will grow forests in five provinces: Quang Ninh, Lang Son, Nghe An, Kon Tum, and Quang Nam. Last year we planted eucalyptus in Quang Ninh and some trees are now over 5m high.
We plan to build a 40ha nursery with a yearly capacity of 5 million saplings. This year we will grow forests in all five above provinces.
The project aims to create jobs for local people. In Quang Ninh, we brought jobs for over 1,000 farmers during their leisure time.
Based on this project, other projects to produce bamboo products, pulp, paper, and cardboard for export will be implemented and they will create more jobs for local residents and contribute to hunger eradication and poverty reduction, improve the environment and mitigate natural calamities.
In the past 30 years, our Chairman, Steve Chang, has followed and has succeeded in protecting network security and now he wants to test his ability in environmental protection.
Last year Trend Micro’s profit was $300 million. If we relied on afforestation, when would we be able to obtain such profit? Our goal is building a social business, a green business to protect the environment, not seeing profit as top priority.
The eucalyptus forest in Quang Ninh Province
Some scientists say growing forests with only one kind of tree will lessen the biodiversity of that region. What do you think about this? And how will your project contribute to Vietnam’s biodiversity?
I think that opinion is correct. But we are trying to diversify trees in our forests. We will invite experts to help us in this field.
Some modern technologies will be used in this project. What are they?
We are using the latest GIS and GPS technologies to supervise and manage the forests. We also stick chipsets to some trees to watch the growth of trees scientifically. Advanced technologies are applied at our nursery to reduce environment pollution and raise the ratio of living trees.
Steve Chang is the Chairman of Trend Micro (Taiwan), one of the world’s leading groups in developing anti-virus software. In 1988 Steve Chang established Trend Micro with $5,000. In 2006, Trend Micro’s turnover was $850 million and employed over 2,000 employees in 137 countries and territories. Trend Micro accounts for 55% of the Asian market for anti-virus software. He is called the “Asian Bill Gates”. He was on the list of the 22 most powerful persons in Asia in 2001 released by ZDNET Asia. He was presented the Asian Star Award in 1999 by Business Week, and called The Founder of 2004 by Asia Business Leader Awards.
Steve Chang recently decided to invest $255 million in afforestation and processing wood in Vietnam through InnovGreen Group. This firm is the largest foreign investor in Vietnam’s forestry sector.
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