Last updated: 16:42 - June 26, 2007
Vietnam faces increasing desertification http://www.nhandan.com.vn/english/life/260607/life_vna.htm
Due to massive environmental pressures, Vietnam is struggling to contain encroaching desertification that is turning formerly cultivatable land into arid wastelands.
Vietnam is now home to more than 9 million hectares of uncultivable land that accounts for 28 percent of the country's total land mass, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development's Forestry Department. Uncontrolled forest exploitation and prolonged droughts in many places, especially the central, central highlands and Northwestern regions, are said to be the main factors that are increasing the pace of desertification, environmental experts said.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Vietnam has 462,000 hectares of coastal sand or 1.4% of the country's land area. These dunes that are predominantly located in the central coastal provinces stretching from Quang Binh to Binh Thuan and the Mekong Delta provinces with 87,800 hectares of them being considered as 'mobile'. This means they move and take root in other areas and cause significant soil erosion along the way.
In a bid to contain the problem, Vietnam has implemented a 5 million hectare reforestation programme and with the assistance of the World Bank, the Global Environment Fund and the Trust Fund for Forests is building a programme on sustainable forestland management. The initiative looks to protect and maintain the fertility of forests nationwide. (VNA)
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