The Da Nang People’s Committee has finally decided to stop paintball shooting, the game organized for the travelers to the Son Tra natural reserve area, so as to avoid possible harming of the wildlife.
The decision by the Da Nang city’s authorities has put an end to the prolonged argument about whether to organize paintball shooting tours to entertain travelers.
The local authority, when releasing the decision, has requested relevant branches to inform the cancelation of the tours to the travel firms and the travelers who are going to the Son Tra peninsula. As such, the city has decided to protect the wildlife instead of attracting tourists to the locality no matter what.
The place where the paintball shooting service was provided is the forestry land area with natural forest in Hai Dang area of the Son Tra sanctuary.
The 33 hectare land area was allocated to Pham Hung Manh in Son Tra district in Da Nang City who has the responsibility of planting and protecting the forests.
Manh has planted the forests, farmed fish, grown fruit trees, built houses and inner roads to provide ecotourism services. Manh’s son, Pham Truong Mai, has set up the Truong Mai Company Ltd which provides ecotourism services on the allocated land area, which has been named Nhat Lam Thuy Trang Tra.
According to the Da Nang Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, the activities carried out by Manh and his son have violated the contract on the forest allocation.
In late 2012, Truong Mai joined forces with Huy Khanh Company Ltd and MDQ JSC to organize paintball shooting services.
In the report to the Da Nang City People’s Committee, the agriculture department wrote that the area where the service was provided was a natural forest, the place where wild animals, including the rare and precious ones, live and grow up. Meanwhile, the paintball shooting causes noise in the locality, while the bullets from the gun contain toxic chemical substances which may cause fire.
Le Van Nhi, a forest ranger of the Son Tra – Ngu Hanh Son districts’ unit, affirmed the paintball services gather many people, cause explosions and noise, while he was not sure if the bullets were toxic and if they would harm the wildlife and the environment.
However, Nhi concluded that the serviced should be removed, saying that under the current laws on the forest protection and development, no one can use the forestry land for business development.
Meanwhile, Phan The Duc, Managing Director of Huy Khanh Company, Deputy Director of MDQ JSC, affirmed that paintball shooting will in no way affect the wildlife and the environment.
“They (the agriculture department which proposed to stop paintball shooting service) don’t understand about paintball shooting,” Duc said.
Duc, showing the firing range, said that the site covers an area of 2,000 square meters only, with no living animals and no ancient trees. Duc said that the noise from the shooting would in no way affect the living environment of the rare and precious wildlife as people think.
He affirmed that all the equipments and the instruments that serve the game are put under the Ministry of National Defense’s management. The instrument for shooting is, in fact, not “gun”, while the bullets, in fact, are the softgels with vegetable oil and color making substances inside.