Dr Quý’s death is “a big loss for Vi?t Nam’s conservation field, as well as for the national and international researcher community,” said PanNature, an organisation dedicated to protecting and conserving diversity of life and improving human well-being in Vi?t Nam, for which Quý was a advisor and supporter since its establishment.
In the early 1960s, a young ornithologist successfully persuaded Vietnam’s top leaders, including its founding president, Ho Chi Minh, to designate a tract of land near the capital as the country’s first national park.
Attention has recently been paid to how REDD+ mitigation policies are integrated into other sectoral policies, particularly those dealing with climate adaptation at the national level. But there is less understanding of how subnational policy and local projects are able to incorporate attention to adaptation; therefore, we use a case study in Vietnam to discuss how REDD+ projects and policies address both concerns of mitigation and adaptation together at subnational levels. Through stakeholder interviews, focus groups, and household surveys in three provinces of Vietnam with REDD+ activities, our research sought to understand if REDD+ policies and projects on the ground acknowledge that climate change is likely to impact forests and forest users; if this knowledge is built into REDD+ policy and activities; how households in forested areas subject to REDD+ policy are vulnerable to climate change; and how REDD+ activities can help or hinder needed adaptations. Our findings indicate that there continues to be a lack of coordination between mitigation and adaptation policies in Vietnam, particularly with regard to REDD+. Policies for forest-based climate mitigation at the national and subnational level, as well as site-based projects, have paid little attention to the adaptation needs of local communities, many of whom are already suffering from noticeable weather changes in their localities, and there is insufficient discussion of how REDD+ activities could facilitate increased resilience. While there were some implicit and coincidental adaptation benefits of some REDD+ activities, most studied projects and policies did not explicitly target their activities to focus on adaptation or resilience, and in at least one case, negative livelihood impacts that have increased household vulnerability to climate change were documented. Key barriers to integration were identified, such as sectoral specialization; a lack of attention in REDD+ projects to livelihoods; and inadequate support for ecosystem-based adaptation.
In a round-table organised by the Party Central Committee’s Commission for Economic Affairs (PCEA) on December 23, Le Ai Thu from the Vietnam Mining Coalition(*) pointed to two particular articles of the law, which he believed to be "very difficult to apply in real life".
The remarkable pace and scale of economic development in Vietnam is increasingly impacting the environment and communities, and a team of Vietnamese journalists is ready to document these changes with data-driven stories. From 26-28 October 2016 in Hanoi, Vietnam, USAID-supported…
Nguyen Duc To Luu of PanNature Vietnam presented results from the analysis of the cardamom value chain in the districts like Xin Man, where they faced challenges in the unsustainable forest cultivation of resources and the limited access to NTFPs due to existing regulations. The case recognized that key policies surrounding the development and conservation of NTFPs have yet to be strengthened at the national level to establish stronger linkages between stakeholders and some related policies that ensure sustainability in terms of profit and resource management.
The Save the Mekong Coalition has issued an Open Letter to the developers of the Don Sahong Dam to express our serious and ongoing concerns over the development of the project.
This issue brief—the third in Stimson’s “Letters from the Mekong” series—continues to challenge the prevailing narrative that the current rapid pace of dam construction on the Mekong River in mainland Southeast Asia will continue until the entire river is turned into a series of reservoirs.
Whether it is for power generation or irrigation, all upstream developments on the Mekong River put Vi?t Nam at risk as the last downstream country, experts said yesterday. Hence all countries in the Mekong River basin should rethink their approaches and adopt measures to minimise impacts on communities and the ecosystem, said Tr?nh Lê Nguyên, director of People and Nature Reconciliation (PanNature), a Vietnamese non-governmental organisation.
On November 4, PanNature along with the Henry L. Stimson Center and International Union for Conservation for Nature (IUCN) – hosted a panel discussion entitled, “Opportunities for Efficient Water Use in the Mekong Basin and Implications for Vietnam.” The panel discussion brought together participants from domestic and international civil society organizations, government and ministry representatives, as well as foreign diplomats to share their perspectives and opinions related to hydropower development in Laos, a landlocked country who’s ambition to become the “battery of Asia” brings concerns about the environmental sustainability of the entire region.