VietNamNet Bridge - The government must tighten environmental management in order to avoid environmental disasters, experts have urged.

Dang Hung Vo, former Deputy Minister of MONRE, said the mass fish deaths in the four provinces in the central region on Buoi River in Thanh Hoa province and on Nhieu Loc – Thi Nghe canal in HCMC should be seen as an alarm bell. 

He urged the government to check the legal framework on environmental protection and tighten control to avoid environmental disasters in the future.

According to Vo, tpenvironmental standards for waste stipulated in the decree in 2003 were low as commented by many scientists. The low standard requirements were only suitable to the previous development period, when Vietnam needed to attract investments.

Nowadays, as the government says that it is necessary to be selective about investors and refuses to import outdated technology, it would be better to reconsider the requirements on investment projects and heighten required standards.

The government must tighten environmental management in order to avoid environmental disasters, experts have urged.

The Loan, former deputy head of the Pollution Control Agency, said it was understandable why Vietnam set low requirements in the past to attract investors, but that now it was necessary to set higher requirements in the new period.

The experts, while calling for a legal framework with stricter regulations, emphasized that it was necessary to let social organizations and people to participate in environmental supervision works. 

The Land Law is the only law which allows people to take direct supervision. 

“It would be better to let people to get directly involved in environmental monitoring. I think the National Assembly needs to add the principle into the Environment Protection Law which has just been ratified,” Vo said.

“The environment belongs to all people,” he explained. “The land also belongs to the entire population and is put under the entire population’s monitoring. Why not apply the principle to the environment?”

Nguyen Ngoc Ly, director of the Center for Environment and the Community, said her center has been lobbying for the enactment of the water pollution control law. 

Ly also said that in order to control environmental disasters, it is necessary to set up a committee in charge of controlling the quality of surface water. 

The monitoring figures must be made public, so that the entire population can take part in environmental protection.

In fact, the regulation on environmental monitoring came out in 2008, when 10 percent of industrial parks followed the regulation. 

In some provinces such as Binh Duong and Dong Nai, local authorities spend money to build monitoring stations.


TBKTSG