2005 Regional DM - Vietnam: Environmental Action
The topic for this year’s competition is “Environmental Action’’. Vietnam is facing a number of serious environmental problems, related to industrialization, urbanization, and exploitation of natural resources. Grants will be provided for projects in three areas, with special attention to increased NGO and community involvement.
Themes (and subthemes) of the competition:
The theme for the VID 2005 is “Environmental Action’’ with three sub-themes:
- Managing Solid Waste. Vietnam produces over 15 million tons of waste each year from households, industries, commercial enterprises, and hospitals and the amount will increase rapidly over the next decade. Managing this waste is a big challenge, both because of its substantial cost and its large potential benefits to public health and the quality of life. This sub-theme will support innovative ideas by NGOs, community groups, and pubic and private enterprises to minimize solid waste by promoting solid waste recycling, reuse, and composting and other recovery activities, and which generate incomes and contribute to sustainable communities.
- Sustainable uses of natural resources. Vietnam’s possesses abundant natural resources (land, agriculture, water, and forests), but the productivity of these resources is being degraded as a result of overuse and mismanagement. In the last 5 decades, natural forest cover has shrunk from 43 to 29 percent of the land area, and the country is facing an acute shortage of arable land. Habitat loss has led to a rise in the number of threatened species. Sedimentation, and point and non-point sources of pollution are threatening the health of rivers. Over-fishing and destruction of coral reefs and mangroves have reduced fishing yields and damaged coastal ecosystems. The rural poor will be affected most by continuing declines in productivity. This sub-theme will support initiatives by Vietnamese rural communities, NGOs, and individuals, to empower them to undertake activities that improve management of natural resources and protect biodiversity. Creative ideas could include community forestry, non-timber forest products, reducing the illegal trade in wildlife, and establishment of eco-villages.
- Community involvement in monitoring environmental problems. Vietnam has been achieving results with community based monitoring of pollution, bringing social pressure on polluters to comply with laws and providing enterprises with incentives for improving pollution control. This sub-theme would support innovative ideas for improving environmental performance of enterprises and government agencies responsible for the environment. Projects could be based on public disclosure and community and NGO involvement in monitoring, behavior-changing awareness campaigns, exchange of environmental information and improving responsibility for environmental protection.