Vietnam - Don’t eat into resources: expert

The climate change has caused saltwater infiltration into the Mekong River Delta, which has been threatening the aquatic and agricultural gene resources of the biggest rice grainary.

Ky Quang Vinh, Director of the Can Tho Provincial Natural Resources and the Environment Monitory Center, the head of the program on responding to climate change. 

In the interview given to Saigon Tiep Thi, has stressed that the climate change has badly affected Vietnam already, and that Vietnam needs to take necessary measures to deal with the problem right now.

According to Vinh, protecting forests should be considered the most important work in coping with the climate change.

The records in the last 10 years show that the air humidity in Can Tho has decreased by two percent, the rainfall has decreased to 200mm, while the salinity of 4‰ has moved towards An Giang province and killed the rice here.

This shows that the “attack” of the climate change has become stronger, which has caused more serious consequences. The activities taken by human on the upstream of the Mekong River and in the inner of Mekong Delta, including the building of hydropower plant dams, waste water discharging and aquatic
overexploitation will lead to the increases of the extreme weather phenomena, such as typhoons, lightning, whirlwind, landslide due to the changes in the flow regime changes.

With the seawater level rises of 30cm, 50cm and 100cm, the agricultural productivity would see the declines of up to 100 percent.

Could you please tell us more about the signs of the climate change in the region?

The self-cleaning mechanism of the rivers has lost its effectiveness due to declining water quality from upstream, and due to the overexploitation, spontaneous waste discharging, and lack of people’s awareness of protecting the environment. These all can “pave the way” for the climate change to come more rapidly and cause more serious consequences.

I have to say that this is not the problem of Mekong River only, but other rivers and other regions are suffering the same problems.

You have warned that this will cause serious consequences. Could you please elaborate on this?

The aquatic genetic resources have been seriously degrading. The shrimp and fish breeding has been carried out in a spontaneous way and massive scale, while the natural aquatic resources have been overexploited which has made the resources exhausted. If Vietnam does not improve the species, the diversified aquatic system of the Mekong River Delta will decrease. Hatched shrimp, of course, is
not as good as natural shrimp in terms of antibodies against diseases, and in terms of meat quality.

In general, the quantity and quality declines of the aquatic and botanic gene resources will badly influence the country’s food security.

What are the causes, then?

Eating into natural resources is really not the way for sustainable development. Singapore and Japan do not have many valuable natural resources, but they still have sustainable development. It would be better to focus on developing grey matter and technologies than sell natural resources.

Vietnam is selling its natural resources, which can be described as cutting its meat to sell for a handful of steam glutinous rice, which is much less valuable than the meat. The wounds in the natural resources will make the whole body weakened.

China has been moving very fast by following this way, but consequences have also come very soon. China once built an imposing dam, which can be seen from the Moon. However, the Chinese authorities have admitted that the dam is really a blunder.

The climate change has overall and regional impacts. For example, if some hurts the Cat Tien forest in Lam Dong, Dong Nai, or destroy the U Minh forest in Kien Giang, Ca Mau, serious consequences would also occur in many other regions.

If China builds hydropower plants on the upstream, the countries on the downstream, including Vietnam, will suffer.

Source: SGTT

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