Project promotes ‘green' offices 
 
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Viet Nam and the German Business Association (GBA) in Viet Nam have announced that they will collaborate to support, promote and recommend the WWF Green Office programme to all its member corporations.
 
The GBA in Viet Nam, with more than 160 member corporations, is the first business association in the country to publicly and proactively support, promote and recommend the WWF Green Office programme.
 
GBA Chairman Alexander Bischoff explained that ongoing support for the programme would improve environmental awareness and energy savings, amongst, and hopefully beyond, its member corporations.
 
"Protecting the environment, especially in Viet Nam, is no longer a private task but a responsibility for all of society, and therefore its corporations and businesses," Bischoff said.
 
"The World Bank calculates that Viet Nam may incur a loss of up to 5.5 per cent of GDP (gross domestic product) due to environmental pollution and wasted energy each year. Therefore, when the country reached a GDP of US$76 billion in 2008, the nation lost around $4.2 billion.
 
"The country has to spend around $780 million annually on community health problems aggravated by pollution-induced diseases, also according to the global lender," said Bischoff.
 
He added that some GBA member corporations have already experienced success as WWF Green Offices.
Current Green Office Viet Nam members include the Finnish Embassy, the British Embassy and British Consulate-General, Conforama, OUT-2 Design and Toyota Motors Viet Nam. 
 
Frozen wild animals found, elephant slashed for tusks 
 
Police in the northern province of Thanh Hoa announced the seizure of a truckload of frozen wild animals and their horns on Monday
 
Police in the northern province of Thanh Hoa announced the seizure of a truckload of frozen wild animals and their horns on Monday 
 
The truck was carrying ten panthers and one copperhead in addition to 15 deer and giraffe horns. 
 
Driver Le Anh Dung from the nearby Nghe An Province said he was transporting the animals for an illegal wildlife dealer named Tran Thi Duong, 37, investigators alleged. 
 
Duong said she was shipping the animals to a glue maker in Thanh Hoa, according to authorities.
 
Also on Monday, a domesticated elephant in Dak Lak Province was found covered in hundreds of heavy lacerations along a local river. Its tail was almost removed and the hindlegs had been baldy burned. 
 
Nguyen Tru, Chairman of the Thanh Ha Eco-Tourism Company which owns the elephant, said thieves must have seized the animal for its 70 centimeter tusks.
 
Tru imagines that the thieves abused the animal to wear it down so they could remove the tusks. The animal is still alive and in bad shape, he said.
 
Six months ago Tru reported that some people had tried to electrocute the elephant to take its tusks, but it managed to escape.
 
Vietnam has banned all manner of wildlife poaching.
 
However, widespread commercial demand for animal parts (mostly for dubious health tonics and medicines), has rendered the ban ineffective.
 
NA to impose environment tax on plastic bags 
 
The Vietnamese National Assembly Thursday discussed the bill on environment tax that intends to impose a levy on plastic bags and several more products. 
 
Environment activists have launched some campaigns to call on people not to use plastic bags. 
 
The bill adds more products to the list of term affected by the tax, including petrol, coal, HCFC, plastic bags, herbicide, insecticide, bactericide… In the future the NA’s Law Committee will add more terms to the list of products affected by the law if needed. 
 
The bill will impose VND50,000 tax (US$2,5 ) on one kg of plastic bags while NA members asked to increase higher tax on plastic bags because the use of the product needs to be put on alert, causing seriously environment pollution. 
 
Some NA members raised concern over tax upon petrol as inflation in the country has sharply increased. They said that tax upon petrol would impact on prices of essential goods, leading to CPI increase. 
 
Relating to tax calculating measures, the bill says that tax payment depends on quantity of tax-affected products.
In the current law, products have to be under the influence of environment fees and the fees are not enough to recover environment. As a result, environment is critically polluted by productive activities. 
 
The law will not aim to increase the national budget but target businesses’ responsibility to environment, said Chief of NA Financial Committee Phung Quoc Hien. 
 
Source: VNS, Thanh nien, SGGP