VietNamNet Bridge – Viet Nam plans to focus on minimising pollution in craft villages and industrial parks, referred to as the two major hot spots throughout the nation.

Accumulated waste builds up near Phong Khe Paper Processing Village in northern Bac Ninh Province. Viet Nam is making efforts to curb and tackle environmental pollution in craft villages and industrial parks.

This is one of the main points under the new National Strategy for Environmental Protection announced by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. The strategy looks to 2020 with a vision to 2030.

The national plan for environmental protection aims to control the increasing spread of environmental pollution, degradation of natural resources and biodiversity decline, said Deputy Minister Bui Cach Tuyen.

Environmental protection efforts were proving decisive in furthering sustainable development for the country, he said.

Statistics show that about 1,000 traditional craft villages now need financial support to deal with environmental pollution, said Nguyen Van Tai, director of the ministry's Institute of Strategy and Policy on Natural Resources and Environment. Viet Nam still has about 3,500 traditional craft villages.

The pollution in villages includes waste water disposal, mounting piles of garbage and air pollution from the burning of toxic substances used in small production firms,

"It is estimated that it will cost about VND50 trillion (US$2.3 billion) to remove environmental pollution from the 1,000 craft villages by 2020," Tai said.

At present, only 60 per cent of industrial parks throughout Viet Nam have waste-water treatment systems meeting health standards. This will hopefully be increased to 95 per cent by 2020.

The national strategy sets up four targets for 2020. These are to reduce environmental pollution, restore polluted and degraded areas, control the decline of biodiversity, strengthen the response to climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Tai said that the total cost for implementing the national strategy by 2020 was initially estimated at $50.8 billion.

This will be mobilised from different sources, including the State budget, local budgets, business organisations and individuals, he said.

Although the project has received positive feedback from scientists attending the launching ceremony, institute director Tai admitted that it had failed to clearly separate which regions, provinces or cities were to receive priority in treating environmental pollution.

Overall solutions have been pointed out, Tai said.

The first was to make a profound change in a sense of duty among all authorities, sectors, enterprises and people
The second was to perfect a legal framework and promote scientific research in environmental protection.

Thirdly, the percentage of environmental expenditure from the State budget needs to be increased to 2 per cent of total budget expenditure from its present 1 per cent

Lastly, co-operation with other regional countries, the world and international organisations needs to be enhanced to prevent and control trans-boundary environmental pollution, bolster biodiversity conservation and climate change response.

Source: VNS