The Financial Times recently published an article entitled China: The road to reform. The first sentence reads: “For those who have to endure the toxic smog of northern China, it often comes as a surprise to learn that Chinese environmental laws and emissions regulations are some of the most stringent in the world.”
If you want to understand why Vietnam’s environmental problems are so intractable, read the article in the August 23, 2013 edition of Viet Nam News entitled Illegal wharves threaten environment.
The duties of communal rangers are stipulated in the Article 13, Decree 119/2006/N?-CP dated16 October 2006 of the Government on the organizational structure and operation of forest rangers. Accordingly, with their rights and obligations, the main duties of rangers are: advising the Chairmen of Communal People’s Committees to implement the state management functions in terms of forest protection plans; build public teams for forest protection; educate, instruct and motivate the community of villages to develop and implement laws as well as regulation1 on forest protection; check, detect, prevent and promptly resolve violations of the law on forest protection under their power and in compliance with legal regulations. As a focal point to promote and support the local government and community to implement policies and laws on forest protection, local rangers have been identified as an indispensable factor in national parks/reserve in developing and implementing the model of special use forest co-management such as the model implemented by PanNature from 2010 to 2013 Ngoc Son Nature Reserve-NgoLuong, Hoa Binh Province.
PI: Le Thi Van Hue, Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Studies (CRES), Vietnam National University Co-PIs: Nguyen Viet Dung, PanNature - People and Nature Reconciliation (PanNature); and Tran Huu Nghi, Tropenbos International (TBI) Vietnam U.S. Partner: Pamela McElwee, Rutgers University Project Dates: June 2012 - May 2015
Policy Bulletin No.7, published by the Center for People and Nature, updates and reflects policy issues newly issued as well as being discussed and drafted during the third quarter of 2012.
Maintaining and increasing forest coverage is identified as one aspect of ensuring sustainable development of Viet Nam in the country’s strategies. Viet Nam has seen the reversed trend in forest coverage loss since 1995 after decades of war and timber extraction for economic purposes. While there’s still controversy about quality of remaining and new forests, the statistical quantity of forest coverage looks promising.
PanNature was selected to implement the activity “Assessment about the awareness of coastal zone management and general environmental awareness in Soc Trang Province”. From 5-20 May 2008, three PanNature researchers worked in cooperation with project counterpart staff at the province, district and commune levels to carry out assessment activities in Soc Trang City and the districts of Cu Lao Dung, Vinh Chau and Long Phu. This technical report presents the results of the field survey. It describes the local awareness on environmental issues and management of coastal resources of different target groups of Soc Trang Province.