In an urgent letter sent to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Ca Mau Provincial People's Committee said that the province has 254 km of coastline and has faced serious erosion, which is largely affecting the lives of local residents.
"Statistics showed that we've lost some 5,251 hectares of coastal protective forest over the past 10 years between 2011 - 2021, including 300 hectares reported in 2021 alone," the letter said. "The situation is getting worse as erosion now occurs in both the rainy and dry season."
The committee said that some 132.50 km of local coastline now needs urgent protection from erosion while another area of 67 km has also been badly affected.
To solve the situation, the Ca Mau Provincial People's Committee proposed the Ministry of Planning and Investment to allocate VND 970 billion from the state budget for the province to carry out some anti-erosion projects in these areas including two sea dykes in Ngoc Hien District which run 10 kilometres, and an eight-kilometre sea dyke in the western coast of the province.
The province will also need further funds to protect the remaining 131.50 km of coastline in the coming years.
Ca Mau has been hit hard by erosion along sea and river dykes. Up to 80 percent of the 254km of sea dykes that run along both the eastern and western coast in the province have been eroded to some extent. The sea has eaten into land by a pace of 20-25m each year, even 50m in some sites, swallowing up protective forests.