VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnam is paying a heavy price – the increasing costs associated with soil, land and water pollution - for robust economic growth.

Coal-fired thermopower, which has the biggest impact on climate change, continues to be developed in Vietnam, which is also facing challenges in protecting biodiversity and forest resources, including the effects of other countries’ activities like hydropower dams on the Mekong River.

In such conditions, activities carried out by environmental organizations play an increasingly important role.

PanNature 

In 2018, the 13-year-old organization spent most of its time on policymaking activities, participating in compiling policies on forest protection and nature conservation within the framework of the 2017 Forestry Law.

PanNature believes that in order to protect forests and biodiversity, people, community and social organizations need to have the right to join forest management activities. 

To protect the benefits of disadvantaged groups, PanNature also urged other parties such as community and local organizations to join the negotiations for the VPA/FLEGT (Voluntary Partnership Agreements/ Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade) between Vietnam and the EU.

PanNature also touches on regional matters. It has cooperated with Oxfam and VCCI (the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce & Industry) to promote responsible investment issues among investors who have activities in the Mekong sub-region.

PanNature this year is striving to build a long-term program to stop illegal poaching and trafficking of wildlife in Vietnam. The organization will also promote the role of the community in forest and nature protection, with focus on the northwestern part of the country and Central Highlands.

GreenID 

GreenID, or Green Innovation and Development Center,  is a Vietnamese non-profit organization (NPO)  that works to promote sustainable development in Vietnam and the larger Mekong region.

GreenID had an outstanding year in 2018 when its director Nguy Thi Khanh became the first Vietnamese to receive the Goldman Environmental Prize, considered the Nobel Prize in environment, for GreenID’s contributions to the promotion of clean energy development in Vietnam.

GreenID has helped Vietnamese farmers reduce river pollution, turn waste into energy, and obtain new technologies such as solar-power lamps and earthworm farms. 

Its successful clean energy programs prove that there are effective alternative and affordable solutions to hydraulic and coal-fired thermal power.

With GreenID’s assistance, all residents in Vo Ba and Ta Lot hamlets of An Giang province, who previously had to travel far to have batteries charged, are now using electricity from solar power.

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