The H\'re ethnic minority has planted sua in Ca Ray Village, the central province of Quang Ngai\'s Ba To District to preserve the rare and valuable timber of the country.

A sua tree cut down in Hanoi

Head of the village, Pham Van Vuot said that all 127 households in the village planted between 10 and 100 sua trees, whose scientific name was Dalbergia tonkinensis.

Pham Thi Nga, owner of a 2,500-square-metre sua garden, was one of the first residents to plant the timber in the village.

After seeing loggers cut a number of sua trees of more than one hundred years old and make the timber forest in Ba E Villagbald, Nga decided to start planting young sua trees.

At that time sua timber was sold for only a little more than other kinds of wood. Now its price is more than VND10 billion ($487,800) per cubic metre.

"Many people in my village laughed at me when I planted the timber as they thought it took more than one hundred years to develop a tree," she said.

Despite the sneers, Nga and her husband were determined to plant and preserve the valuable timber. Nga often went to the Ba To District Agricultural Extension Centre to study planting technology.

Other residents in the village gradually learned of the tree\'s value and asked Nga for some seeds to sow.

By now the village has thousands of sua tree.

Head of the village, Pham Van Vuot said the village has set up a self-management unit to protect the local sua forest.

Meanwhile, Pham Van Xe, chairman of the Ba Tieu Commune People\'s Committee, said the commune authority was canvassing other villages in the commune to implement the model.

"However, the work met a lot of difficulty as local residents\' ability is still low yet they want more immediate advantages," he said.

Most of local residents wanted to plant potato or cassava to earn a faster income, he said.