Danish firm to help control flooding in HCMC
Denmark-based firm Cold Flood Prevention is expected to pilot a project to control flooding caused by high tides at Phu Dinh Wharf in HCMC’s District 8 in the third quarter of this year.
In December last year and January this year, the HCMC Department of Transport and related agencies met with representatives of Cold Flood Prevention to discuss the feasibility of using its technologies to control flooding in the city.
The department also invited the company’s representatives to inspect some flood-prone areas in districts 7, 8, and Binh Thanh before suggesting effective technological solutions to protect these areas from flooding.
The firm later decided to carry out a pilot project free-of-charge at Phu Dinh Wharf. On February 6, the department suggested the city government allow Cold Flood Prevention to implement the project and got approval in a document signed by HCMC vice chairman Nguyen Huu Tin.
The firm plans to build a dyke that is 50 meters long and 0.52 meters high to test how it works in one to two days before having it adjusted in line with the flooding situation when tides rise to more than 1.6 meters.
The firm’s flooding control products cost between 394-443 euros a meter.
Test-uses surveillance cameras to curb reckless driving
Hanoi traffic police are handling traffic law breakers via surveillance cameras on a trial basis that help them crack down on their violations just moments after they are detected, a police officer has said.
Major Pham Quang Minh, deputy chief of a team tasked with commanding traffic and operating traffic signals, under the Hanoi Traffic Police Department, said his unit is coordinating with four other traffic police teams to curb lawbreaking acts such as running the lights or encroaching on the wrong lanes.
Under the pilot plan, 450 surveillance cameras have been installed on major routes in the city.
As soon as images of traffic rule violations are transmitted to the Hanoi Traffic Operation Center managed by Minh’s unit, the center will immediately transfer them to the mobile phones of members of one of the four police teams through a specialized transmission system.
At the same time, information related to the infringements will also be sent to those members through walkie-talkies, Minh said.
With the images and information provided, traffic police officers can stop the lawbreakers and halt their violations instantly, Minh added.
“We arrange six staff members at the center for each working shift. About 40 cases of violations are caught on tape per day on average and the recorded images are objective evidence of lawbreaking behaviors,” Minh said.
Traffic rule breakers often argue with – or even resist – police officers who pull them over for signs of violations, but now they cannot deny what they have done thanks to the surveillance camera system, the official said.
Senior Lieutenant Nguyen Hoang Hai, from Traffic Police Team No. 3, said that most people in Hanoi approve of this method of dealing with disregard for road safety.
After looking at the images of their violations, no violators have had any negative reactions to traffic police officers so far, Hai said.
Education promoted in the Central Highlands
Central Highlands provinces have prioritised investment in education for ethnic minority groups, contributing to fostering socio-economic development in the region, according to the Central Highlands Steering Committee.
After national liberation in 1975, the localities have seen a significant increase in the number of academic facilities thanks to regional investment in education.
As many as 3,423 schools and 49,244 classes have been built to meet public demand. To date, most communes in the region have their own kindergartens, primary schools and secondary schools.
For the 2014-2015 academic year, Dak Lak province is offering classes at 987 schools, a sixfold increase from 1975.
The Central Highlands built 57 ethnic group boarding schools and 86 semi-boarding schools o accommodate students from remote areas.
Universities and colleges also expanded in both scale and specialities to meet the regional demands for human resources. The provinces also assigned 2,034 ethnic students to pursue their studies in other colleges and universities nationwide to foster high quality labour serving the socio-economic development in the region.
Ethnic language teaching programmes are also being promoted; Dak Lak province is teaching Ede in 86 primary schools and 12 boarding schools and Dak Nong has given Ede, M’nong and Ma lessons to teachers in ethnic minority regions.
The provinces have carried out policies benefiting ethnic minority students, including the provisions of books, learning supplies, tuition fees, exam fees, transport fees and health insurance.
The Central Highlands comprise five provinces of Lam Dong, Gia Lai, Dak Lak, Dak Nong and Kon Tum.
Electricity access brings light to families in remote Tuyen Quang
All hamlets in the northern mountainous province of Tuyen Quang have gained access to the national power grid, improving local living conditions and socio-economic development.
More than 200,000 provincial households now have a regular supply of electricity, an increase of 40,000 since 2009.
Da Ban 1 and Da Ban 2 are the most disadvantaged hamlets of My Bang commune, Yen Son district, with almost all residents hailing from the Dao ethnic group.
Le Chi Cong, head of Da Ban 1 hamlet, recalled the hardships of life when all 148 households did not have electricity. Although they spent nearly VND100 million (US$4,760) on connecting their houses to power lines from neighbouring areas, electricity was weak and unstable due to the long distances and inferior electric wire quality.
Other families used water turbines to produce power, but these machines were only operational in the rainy season and became useless in the dry season, Cong said.
Tuong Van Quan, a resident in Da Ban 1, said since the hamlet gained access to the national grid, his rice husking expenses have been cut by VND1,000 for every 10kg of rice thanks to the availability of electricity-powered facilities.
Meanwhile, 134 houses in neighbouring Da Ban 2 have also finally accessed electricity thanks to the national new-style rural area building programme carried out in the locality since 2011, according to the head of the hamlet, Ly Van Cang.
Local families have bought lighting devices as well as agricultural machinery, such as rice hullers and cassava grinders, that help them reduce production time and expenses, he added.
Bui Quang Hung, Chairman of the My Bang communal People’s Committee, said under the rural area building programme, the State-run Tuyen Quang Power Company built more than 4km of high-voltage lines, 15km of low-voltage lines, and two substations at a total cost of VND10 billion (US$476,000) last year, providing all houses in Da Ban 1 and 2 with electricity from the national grid.
Power access is a prerequisite for socio-economic development, helping My Bang narrow the gap between rural and urban areas to become one of the first three communes in Tuyen Quang province to meet all 19 requirements of the rural area building programme, he noted.
Food safety – a problem Vietnam must tackle
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) in collaboration with the Canadian Embassy in Vietnam staged a conference on March 19 discussing how best to tackle the challenge of food safety management.
Speaking at the opening, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Vu Van Tam stressed that food safety has always been a primary concern of the government and citizens of the country.
However in the context of integration, food safety is even a more pressing issue today than it has been in the past Tam said, particularly as it relates to standards for imports of food and agriculture products from other nations.
It is imperative that the government have clear and concise health and safety regulations in place to reduce disputes between foreign and domestic businesses conducting importing and exporting activities.
Nguyen Nhu Tiep, head of the National Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Department in turn said that to best insure consumers are supplied with food that is safe to eat and resolve trade issues; the department is devising health and safety regulations in line with those promulgated by the World Trade Organization.
However, Tiep said that there remain obstacles to implementing the regulations in compliance with that guidance due to limited staff capabilities, lack of funding and lack of co-ordination among MARD, the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT).
Lucia Frick, a consultant from the Canada Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada echoed Tiep’s sentiments underscoring the need to strengthen co-ordination among the three ministries and to improve staff performance and capabilities.
Frick was also adamant on the need for strict punishments for those who violate food safety laws in Vietnam.
Veteran silently finds his comrades
Veteran Vu Hong Sau, in Hoa Lu ward, Pleiku city, Gia Lai province, has kept returning to old battlefields on his own to find his comrades’ sets of remains though the war has ended for decades.
Born in Gia Hoa commune, Gia Vien district, Ninh Binh province, Vu Hong Sau joined the army for the national anti-American resistance war in 1968. During 25 years serving in the army, he had always fulfilled all his assigned tasks in whatever positions.
Having demobilized, Sau concentrated on developing his family’s economy and actively participated in social activities in his native land. Despite being busy with every day’s work to support his family, Sau had not a single day without thinking of his comrades-in arms especially those who had laid down their lives for the national independence and freedom.
In 1994, he decided to return to the old battlefields to find his comrades’ remains and since then Sau has been doing such a noble job tirelessly.
Especially, he only used his retirement pension to cover his journeys’ expenses back to the old battlefields. His efforts had been paid off as he had found and collected more than 30 sets of remains of his comrades.
He said that he deemed it his responsibility and a token of gratitude to his comrades-in-arms to find and repatriate martyrs’ remains to their hometowns for partly ease of the pain of the martyrs’ families.
Veteran Sau’s good deeds are praised by local people as an example for young generations, affirmed Secretary of the Hoa Lu ward’s Party Committee Le Viet Nhuong.
Exhibition displays skeletons in gay people’s closets
Cat Thy learned about social stigma very early in life. She played with dolls as a kid, and always loved to dress in girls’ clothes.
All went well until she turned seven, when her friends started to abandon her, and that made her realize her behavior was not acceptable for someone born a boy.
She dropped out of school at 15 to save herself from peer hostility.
A year later she started to look for unofficial beauty services that included direct injection of liquid silicon into her face and chest to look more like a woman.
“It’s very uncomfortable, but I’ve got used to it,” Tuoi Tre newspaper quotes her as saying.
She takes two or three birth control pills a day, which she believes have hormonal effects that keep her breasts in shape.
The 28-year-old is still pretty much in hiding, but she and some 80 members of the LGBT community in Vietnam have agreed to let their life stories be revealed to the public at an exhibition in Hanoi.
The Drawers presents items they sent, those that are most closely connected with their life and journey to achieve their true gender identity, not the one the society wants them to carry.
In Thy’s drawer are many big needles, a box of glue, several bags of silicon liquid and different kinds of birth control pills.
“I have to have regular injections in some places and the holes there are big now. Sometimes I have to use glue to cover them or the silicon would flow out,” Thy says in a note sent to the exhibition from Ho Chi Minh City.
“The bruises on my body are the results of glue burns.”
Another drawer, this one belonging to Nang, 23, of Hanoi, only has a razor. She uses it to cut herself every time she is sad, and it happens often.
“I’m a lesbian and my family keeps scolding me about that,” she says. “Life’s so bitter and ironic. I can just laugh about my misery, about how people see me.” But the drawers are not all sad.
Mong, a transsexual from Ho Chi Minh City, has pretty gowns in hers. The 29-year-old said in a note that her mother used to beat her when neighbors reported her “strange” actions when she was a little boy.
“It was humiliating for her. She would beat me and rub salt on the injuries. “She wished she had laid an egg instead.”
When Mong grew up, many boys from the families that used to tease her opted for heroin while she went into charity.
Her mother started to grow more accepting. Several years ago her mother asked her to accompany her to the market to buy cloth for a dress.
“I still remember what my mother said in front of the market: that she wanted to buy clothes for her daughter, pointing at me. I was so happy.”
The exhibition, backed by UNESCO, the Swedish Institute and the Swedish embassy in Hanoi, is on at Vietnam University of Fine Arts until the end of March.
It has drawn many people who stand quietly looking at the items and reading the notes that have come along.
Nguyen Van Anh, director of the Center for Studies and Applied Sciences in Gender, Family, Women and Adolescents in Hanoi, who was among the people behind the exhibition idea, said everyone has some secret drawers, and the exhibition gives LGBT people a chance to share theirs.
“It’s not easy to open your secret drawer; there’s the risk that the majority will throw stones at it just because it’s different from the norm,” Anh was quoted as saying by Tuoi Tre.
“But no matter how much it is buried, the pain and desire will still be burning and it would be even worse.”
Camilla Mellander, the Swedish ambassador in Hanoi, said Vietnam has committed to provide a fair society for everyone, regardless of their age, health status or gender.
The exhibition is one step in the commitment being realized, she said. It is aimed at achieving a society where no one feels any pressure or rejection for being gay, she said.
Agencies told to step up implementation of anti-torture convention
Vietnamese ministries have been requested by the Prime Minister to step up their inspections into allegations of torture and their settlement of cases, as stipulated in the United Nations Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatments or Punishments (CAT).
Authorised agencies have also been ordered to publicise legal regulations on torture prevention and the convention’s content, and to strengthen international cooperation in torture prevention.
The Supreme People’s Procuracy has been assigned to coordinate with the Supreme People’s Court, and the ministries of Public Security, Justice, and National Defence to overhaul regulations stipulated in the Criminal Procedure Code, the Civil Code, the Law on State Compensation Liability, the Law on Complaints, and the Law on Denunciations, bringing them in line with the CAT.
The CAT is one of the most important multilateral international treaties on human rights, and aims to eradicate cruel and inhumane treatment and punishment. It was approved by the UN resolution No. 39/46 in 1984 and took effect from June 26, 1987.
In Vietnam, the convention was ratified at the eighth session of the 13th National Assembly on November 28,
Ho Chi Minh City girl provides unconditional love, care for stray cats
A Ho Chi Minh City girl has had her hands full tending to almost 100 stray, abused cats at home during the past two years.
Kim Anh, in her 20s, has provided medical treatment, care, and love for stray, ill-treated felines in her house in District 4 so far, local newswire VnExpress reported.
She first stumbled upon a motionless, starved kitten at a market near her home over two years ago.
Without hesitation, the girl brought the distressed animal home.
During an outing with her boyfriend one day, Anh heard distress meows in the lower part of a bridge.
The couple pulled over, rummaging through a garbage bin nearby and finding a pair of kittens which were strapped tight in a plastic bag and dumped into the bin.
Anh immediately came to their rescue and continued to care for them at her home.
Once she even found a litter of eight kittens, with their umbilical cords on, which were thrown away at Tan Thuan Bridge linking District 7 and District 4.
The cats have grown up to be healthy, agile mice catchers.
Sensing a calling to help cats in need, Anh began to keep an eye on stray, ill-treated felines on roads, in parks, near markets, and at dumping grounds.
She cares for the healthy cats herself while sending the injured to vets.
The girl is elated at the full recovery of many of her feline siblings and aches over some deaths despite her efforts to save them.
She said she had saved a kitten which fell off from the third floor of a building.
The animal was rushed to a vet who said not much could help.
With her persistence and boundless love, Anh painstakingly looked after the kitten, which later made a miraculous recovery though it sustains permanent injury to the right eye.
Before going to work and getting home every day, Anh is busy feeding, cuddling the cats and clearing their mess.
Her mother, younger sister, and some animal-loving neighbors also help her care for the cats.
Daunting challenges arise when dozens of her cats catch plagues at the same time.
During such bouts, the girl is worn out taking them to vets and sanitizing her home to keep others from being infected.
Anh and her family cover all medical and food costs for the felines.
She sometimes calls for donations from animal lovers to save the cats in critical conditions.
As the flock keeps expanding while her home does not have enough space, Anh has no choice but to find new owners for some of her cats by posting notices on social networks.
She always makes sure that the new owners are willing to take good care of the cats and her beloved fluffy friends will not go through ordeals of abuse or ill treatment again.
Ship captain held for stealing from foreign visitor in Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay
Vietnamese police have arrested the captain of a cruise ship and an attendant on suspicion of stealing from a foreign traveler on board a ship in Ha Long Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in northern Vietnam.
Police in Quang Ninh Province on Sunday said they had detained Nguyen Dang Trieu, 29, the captain of cruise ship Truong Giang-QN2316, and Bui Huy Thanh, 21, one of the ship’s attendants, on March 13 for investigation into their alleged property theft, Vietnamese media said.
According to the case file, at 8:00 am that day, a group of 18 tourists from China’s Hainan Province and a Vietnamese tour guide rented the ship at the Bai Chay quay to take a tour of the bay.
At 10:00 am, the ship reached Ga Choi Isle, where the group of tourists left the passenger hold to look at the scenery from the prow.
When the travelers returned to their places, one of them discovered their handbag was missing. The tour guide and the victim searched for the item and finally found it under a chair at the back of the passenger hold.
The victim then realized that US$20, 200 Chinese yuan ($32) and VND7 million ($327) in cash was gone from the bag.
The tour guide called the waterway police of Quang Ninh Province, and before officers arrived Trieu and Thanh returned a $10 banknote, a banknote of 100 Chinese yuan, and 10 banknotes of VND500,000 ($23.4) to the victim and asked that the passenger not report the case to police.
When a police team finally arrived at 11:00 am, Thanh gave the team VND2.4 million ($112.3) as a bribe and the team then reported the bribery attempt, according to An Ninh Thu Do (Capital Security) newspaper.
Police questioned Thanh and Trieu and they pleaded guilty to stealing property from the traveler.
Thanh told police that when the tourist group went to the prow, he entered the passenger hold and took a handbag placed on a table.
Trieu had told Thanh where the bag was in the hold, and after Thanh stole it and took the money from it, the former helped the latter place the bag under a chair at the back of the hold, police said.
The two also confessed that they had committed another theft on the same vessel on March 8.
In that case, which provincial police have been investigating, they stole 400 Chinese yuan ($64) from a member of another group of Chinese tourists when they took a tour of Ti Top Island, also in the bay.
Rivers in central Vietnam province lose 80% of water volume to drought
About 2,500 out of nearly 20,000 hectares of crops in the central province of Khanh Hoa have been affected by the current drought, which is the most severe in ten years and is expected to last until September.
Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai led a governmental delegation to visit the province yesterday to work out measures to limit the consequences of the drought.
The water volume of rivers in Khanh Hoa has fallen by 80 percent because of the low rainfall in 2014, leading to a widespread drought in the area, according to the provincial People’s Committee.
Some reservoirs contain at most 25-50 percent of their capacity, while others display a sheer dry bottom.
The total cultivation area in Khanh Hoa for the current winter-spring season reaches 19,700 hectares, but 2,500 hectares of which, including 2,000 hectares of rice plantations, have incurred drought.
The worst affected localities are Cam Ranh, Cam Lam, and Ninh Hoa.
The shortage of water for the production of the following summer-autumn season is even more threatening.
In Cam Ranh City in the south of Khanh Hoa, as many as 340 hectares of winter-spring rice crops have been damaged by drought.
Pham Dinh Huan, head of the representative office of the irrigation company Nam Khanh Hoa, admitted the crops are threatened because the Suoi Hanh reservoir and other lakes are running out of water.
Since late last month, the company has installed three pumps to provide water for the local irrigation network, Huan added.
In Cam Lam District, nearly 200 pig farms have been badly hit during the past few months.
Le Van Hai, a farmer in Cam Lam’s Cam Thanh Bac Commune, who keeps 200 pigs aged three months, said he is about to drill a well to find more water for production.
The cost to drill a well at a depth of 70-80 meters is nearly VND50 million (US$2,300).
A pig needs an average of nine liters of drinking water and another big volume for washing, Hai revealed.
Khanh Hoa authorities suggested that the central government provide aid of VND25 billion ($1.17 million) for limiting and repairing the damage caused by drought, and grant another VND1 trillion ($46.7 million) to upgrade the current irrigation networks.
Deputy PM Hai instructed local authorities to pay great attention to helping farmers cope with the serious drought.
Hai noted he will forward the propositions to the central government.
Binh Duong aims for urbanization rate of 85% in 2020
The government of Binh Duong Province has set a target of increasing the urbanization rate from over 75% to 85% with a population of up to 2.5- 3 million people by 2020.
At present, the urbanization rate nears 83% in Di An Town and over 84% in Thuan An. About two million people are living in the province’s urban areas of more than 40,600 hectares, which accounts for 15% of the province’s total area. Around 90,000 people from other provinces come to Binh Duong to work and live every year.
However, the occupancy rate in urban areas is still low, and infrastructure links between the province’s urban areas and HCMC have not been well established.
As the urbanization rate of Binh Duong Province is associated with industrial zones, local authorities also focus on industrial development until 2020.
There are 28 operational industrial parks covering an area of more than 9,000 hectares and eight industrial clusters in Binh Duong Province. As scheduled, the number of industrial zones will rise to 35 with a total area of 14,000 hectares in 2020.
Among 33 nations and territories investing in industrial zones in Binh Duong Province, Taiwan leads in the number of investment projects, followed by South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand and the United States. Most Chinese enterprises in the province are small and use low technology.
Foreigners riding hired bikes without license endanger road safety on Phu Quoc
Foreign travelers like exploring landscapes on Phu Quoc Island, off southern Vietnam, while on motorbikes they have hired from local residents but most of these foreigners are posing threats to road safety as they do not master local traffic rules and have no driver’s license, the Vietnam News Agency said in a Vietnamese article published on Wednesday.
In recent years, more and more foreign tourists have visited Phu Quoc off the southern province of Kien Giang and their arrival has given a boost to the development of various services, including the leasing of motorbikes, the Vietnam News Agency said.
Such a service benefits its providers and brings convenience to the users, but a worrying issue is that most of the foreigners who rent motorcycles do not meet the requirements for riding the vehicles.
This is one of the reasons why an increasing number of accidents have happened in recent times.
Most foreign visitors who rent motorbikes have no driver’s license, as required by the law of Vietnam, and have no knowledge of Vietnamese road traffic regulations, the news agency said.
The agency pointed out that many of these foreigners often travel at speed, do not wear crash helmets while driving, or drive on the wrong lane, thus posing serious threats to road safety.
Over the past years, the Vietnam News Agency said, many foreign visitors to Phu Quoc have preferred hiring motorcycles to taking taxis as a means for them to explore the attractions of the island.
Hiring bikes for travel is cheaper than using taxis, and when driving bikes, travelers can call at any places as they wish, whereas they cannot do so when using taxicabs.
The motorbike leasing service has been very familiar with foreign visitors to the island.
A French tourist told the news agency that he had rented a motorbike and traveled around on it to explore the island, as traveling by taxi is costlier but less convenient.
From the beginning of 2015 until now, three road accidents have been caused by foreigners who drove rented motorbikes on Phu Quoc, killing three people, including two foreigners, and injuring two other foreigners.
A visitor coming from Russia said he had seen many other foreigners rent a motorbike on the island so he did the same.
The man, however, said that he has been informed of many accidents brought about by foreigners who drove motorbikes without wearing a helmet and had no driver’s license.
In order to improve traffic safety and reduce road accidents, the Phu Quoc police have encouraged providers of motorbike leasing services to make a commitment that they will not lease their bikes to those tourists, including foreigners, who have no driver’s license as required by law, said Lieutenant Colonel Tran Ngoc Quy, a traffic police officer of the Phu Quoc District Police Department.
Local police have coordinated with hotels to provide their guests with regulations on road safety and increased patrols on streets to detect and prevent any violation, Quy said.
Alarm bell sounded over railway accidents
The most recent railway accident in the central province of Quang Tri sounded alarm bells over the rise of accidents in this sector.
The severe accident in Quang Tri on Tuesday left one dead and three injured. The north-south train collided with a truck with a full load of stones while the driver of the truck was trying to cross the railway despite the coming train. The crash left 15 passenger and cargo trains stranded until the evening of Wednesday.
Figures of Vietnam Railway Corporation (VRC) showed 86 railway accidents killed 37 people and injured 48 in January and February alone. Of these, 10 cases killed nine and injured three during the nine-day Lunar New Year holiday (Tet), which ended late last month.
The National Traffic Safety Committee said that railway accidents are on the rise and that violations of safety regulations were the main cause.
The committee calculated that 80% of serious accidents occurred at the railway-road intersections, especially those illegally opened by local residents without barriers and signal lights.
Statistics from VRC showed more than 5,000 roads cross the railway but only some 1,500 crossroads have signals, automatic warning devices and watchmen on duty.
The committee has urged localities where the railway goes through to strengthen supervision and inspection activities and help people cross the railway in line with safety regulations.
The committee suggested closing the crossroads opened by locals and building more overpasses. Moreover, VRC needs to cooperate with local governments to strengthen safety at the points where the north-south railway and roads meet.
Minister of Health helps matyr’s daughter find a job
The Minister of Health, Nguyen Thi Kim Tien, has extended help to the daughter of a martyr who died in a fight with Chinese forces in the Spratly archipelago, so that she could have a job to support her poor family.
Phan Thi Trang, the daughter of matyr Phan Huy Son, from Dien Chau District, Nghe An Province, has been unable to find a job after graduating from a medicine college. Trang has recently sent a letter to the Facebook page of the Minister of Health to call for help.
In her letter, Trang said that she urgently needs a job to support her mother who is suffering from serious kidney problems and her disabled brother.
“My father was a military doctor and died in 1988 during the Gac Ma Island battle with the Chinese forces,” Trang wrote. “My mother had struggled to raise my brother who was born with disabilities and me.”
Trang said she decided to follow her father’s career and managed to get into a local medicine school.
After seeing Trang’s letter, the Minister of Health has asked the provincial authorities to help with Trang’s situation as a gesture to share some burden with the matyrs’ families in general and to help the special situation of Trang.
Director of Nghe An Province Department of Health, Bui Dinh Long, then helped Trang to get a job at Dien Chau District General Hospital.
Trang said, “I’ll work hard to not disappoint the help from everyone. Not only I can continue following my father’s steps, I also can take care of my mother and brother.”
Forest protection project takes root in Binh Thuan
The central province of Binh Thuan has benefitted from a project restoring and managing its protective forest, furthering sustainable development and bio-diversity protection in the locality.
The 5.26 million USD project, sourced from the Japanese Government’s official development assistance and Vietnamese state funding, has been implemented in six mountainous areas since 2012.
To date, the project’s managing board has zoned off an area of 4,200 hectares for natural forest regeneration while building a 15 kilometre road as part of the effort to develop forest infrastructure. Furthermore, six forest protection stations have been set up with adequate equipment to effectively control forest fires.
The project has made great contributions to raising public awareness in the importance of rehabilitating the forest and protecting its bio-diversity.
In a bid to increase the project’s efficiency, the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development is planning to integrate the project’s components with the national “new-style rural area” programme, further supporting local residents in the zoned areas.
Binh Thuan is currently home to over 317,000 hectares of forest land, accounting for 50 percent of the province’s natural land. These abundant resources play a vital role in regulating the climate in the region as well as in the central coastal areas.
However, the province’s acreage of forest land has suffered from degradation, decreasing 31,000 hectares since 2001.
VNA/VNS/VOV/SGT/SGGP/TT/TN/Dantri
Đăng ký: VietNam News