Source : Vietnam News Service, 18 Jan '06
By : VNS
  

Researchers including VEPA, the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and Sweden International Development Agency (SIDA) used an interdisciplinary approach to analyses of reliable and up-to-date data. The outcome of the report, called Overview of the Status of Wetlands in Viet Nam 15 Years after the Implementation of the Ramsar Convention, recognises that wetland ecosystems must be preserved and developed in sustainable manners.

The report could serve as a valuable resource for policy makers, researchers, post graduate students and others whose work was related to wetlands, said Tran Hong Ha, head of VEPA.

Ha also mentioned that the report represented a cadence for conservation and wetland management trends in Viet Nam over the last 15 years, and it presented recommendations for the country’s future wetland management.

Viet Nam’s wetlands possess a wide range of resources and biodiversity and function as important social, economic and cultural assets. There are more than 10 million hectares of wetlands found in almost all bioregions in the country.

Following the Ramsar Convention’s objectives over the last 15 years, Viet Nam made great strides related to research, cataloguing and the development of tools and techniques for conservation, utilisation and management.

An internationally funded project to increase the quality of marsh management in two Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta provinces will run from 2006-08, said the IUCN. The project will utilise public involvement to protect the Tram Chim National Park in Dong Thap Province and the Lang Sen Natural Reserve in Long An Province.

Its aim is helping local authorities and citizens, who depend on the natural resources, protect the Mekong wetland ecology, the IUCN said. The project is part of a US$30 million initiative to conserve the biodiversity of Mekong basin marshes in Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand.

The Global Environment Fund (GEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Netherlands are funding the project.

The Mekong River Commission (MRC) has already started in the two target provinces: holding training courses for managers working in the bird sanctuary and natural reserve, setting up natural management teams and evaluating the local ecosystem. The commission has also aided in writing programmes for eco-tours that increase local incomes while preserving the marshes.

The project would open doors for Viet Nam’s international co-operation in nature conservation and biodiversity protection, the IUNC said, citing projects to control illegal marsh wildlife trade and to effectively protect flagship species of Mekong wetlands such as Siamese crocodiles.

Meanwhile, the budgets for environmental projects in 2006 were expected to reach VND100 billion ($6.25 million), said the Viet Nam Environmental Protection Fund.

The money would go primarily toward the treatment of solid and industrial liquid waste and to developing solutions for pollution from and in craft villages, said the Fund’s Deputy Director Nguyen Nam Phuong.

Over the last two years since beginning operations, the protection fund had worked with grassroots environmental authorities in punishing or removing polluters and conducting surveys for environmental projects related to factories and craft villages, Phuong said.

To raise money, the protection fund worked with the World Bank, the Japanese International Co-operation Agency (JICA), development agencies of Denmark and Switzerland (DANIDA and SIDA) and the Japanese Bank for International Co-operation (JBIC), Phuong added. — VNS