Environment

Authorities in the northern Ha Giang Province have just announced a plan to open a new nature reserve area in the province's Meo Vac District.

The World Bank has supported a project to build a medical waste treatment area with a total cost of VND120 billion (US$5.4 million) in the central province of Quang Ngai, health officials said.

The central province of Quang Ngai passed a project on August 7 to turn Ly Son Island into a sea preservation zone in an effort to develop the island sustainably.

China, which is accused of fuelling the trade in elephant ivory and rhino horn, on Thursday pledged equipment worth $2 million to curb poaching in Zimbabwe.

Vietnam has joined hands with the international community to protect and develop forests through an initiative to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation while fostering conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.

Despite more than 40 years of environmental management in the ASEAN region, degradation of the environment continues, affecting the most vulnerable populations, a senior policy advisor for the Institute for Global Environment Strategies said yesterday at a climate-change forum

US President Barack Obama will on Monday unveil what he called the "biggest, most important step we've ever taken" to fight climate change, a sensitive issue central to his legacy.

Northern Vietnam is bracing for torrential rain from July 31 to August 4, likely to bring flooding in many localities.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade and US Agency for International Development have signed a letter of intent to cooperate in cutting harmful carbon emissions.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Deutsche Gesellschaftfür Internationale Zusammenarbeit have signed the implementation agreements for two new technical cooperation programmes.

Thermal power plants are under much pressure as they seek to resolve environmental issues that are plaguing them.

Around 358,350 households in HCM City, or nearly one million people, are still using unsafe water, said a local official.

The Vietnam Museum of Nature has assessed and verified the fossil of a big sea snail dating back 247.2 to 242 million years. It was discovered in the central province of Nghe An.

Vietnam plans to start a new scheme to monitor environmental resources to prevent natural disasters, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) has said.

The Con Dao National Park in the southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province has released about 150,000 baby tortoises into the sea since 1994.

French actress Brigitte Bardot has condemned an Australian plan to cull two million feral cats to stop them harming native animals, a proposal animal rights groups said Wednesday was unlikely to be successful.

Farmers and households have been left without fresh water in many areas in the Mekong Delta this year because of severe saline intrusion.

Vietnam’s forests are increasingly threatened as a result of deforestation, forest degradation, fragmentation and other stresses – making them more vulnerable to changing environmental conditions.

Hanoi's West Lake is being severely polluted from domestic garbage and untreated waste discharged from restaurant boats.