VietNamNet Bridge – The Vietnam National Museum of Nature was established in March 2006. However, it’s still unclear when the museum takes shape and receives visitors.

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The nature museum is located in the campus of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, No. 18 Hoang Quoc Viet Street in Hanoi.

However, the building which is called museum, in fact, is the office where museum’s officers work, not the place for displaying specimens. There has been no museum as people imagine it could be, and no land plot to set up a museum.

Over the last six years, since the establishment day, the staff of the nature museum rejoiced in vain four times. The government and Hanoi city authorities four times promised to allocate land to build the museum. The leaders of the museum four times surveyed the promised land plots. However, the promises have not come true yet, and nothing has been made so far.

“A museum needs to attract visitors and researchers. Therefore, it needs to be located near the central area. Who will visit the museum if it is 20 kilometers far from the city?” questioned Dr Pham Van Luc, the museum’s director.

Luc said that the museum needs an area of 10 hectares at least in order to show the whole panorama of Vietnam’s nature. However, since a land plot satisfying the requirements still has not been found, the museum still has not been set up yet, while the specimens created by the museum’s staff have been kept in storehouse.

Dr Dinh Thi Phong, Head of the experimental taxonomy and genetic diversity division of the nature museum complained that the officers here are just “working to prepare for the museum.”

Though having good knowledge and skills, the specialists of the nature museum still have to work in bad conditions.

“We are completely capable to carry out necessary works in accordance with the international standard procedures. However, what we have done so far is just the small works which we believe are the most urgent ones,” Phong said.

Tran Van Sang, a specialist, said: “Museums needs space for displaying specimens. Specimens are made for displaying, not for keeping in storehouse.”

At this moment, no one can say for sure when a real nature museum would be established.

Meanwhile, the museum’s staff has been waiting with impatience. Phong said it seems that competent agencies still have not been fully aware of the importance of the museum.

“The museum is not a work to show off that Vietnam has a diversified and wonderful nature. More importantly, the nature museum is the place to connect research units and researchers from all over Vietnam and the world, aiming to preserve the nature value of the nation and help the nature balancing works,” Phong said.

“We are lacking the knowledge about the country’s nature, about the necessary behaviors towards nature,” she added.

A good piece of news has just been released recently that the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology has allowed the Vietnam Nature Museum to build a displaying area on a 300 square meter land plot within the academy’s campus.

Dr Luc said that his museum has invited Japanese experts to design the display room which can meet the international standards. This would be the first room of the museum themed “the evolution of the life creatures.” There would be a 3D projection room, which is expected to open in 2013.

A national project on collecting samples worth hundreds of billions of dong has also been approved which would kick off in 2013.

The specialists said that the display room would be the apology to the public about the absence of a nature museum.

SGTT