Environment

Harsh penalties were needed to control illegal foresting and land clearance in northern Son La Province, officials say.

Hundreds of tonnes of garbage have been sitting for days on the streets of Can Tho after the city's main landfill was blocked.

The Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences (VASS) on April 22 hosted a seminar on building mechanisms and policies to cope with climate change in Vietnam.

The beach city of Nha Trang in the central province of Khanh Hoa on April 22 hosted a symposium themed “A Healthy Ocean for Prosperity in the Western Pacific: Scientific Challenges and Possible Solutions.”

Falling water levels in several rivers and increasing salinity intrusion have authorities in the central region scrambling for solutions, local reports say.

Nearly everyone in a village in Phu Yen Province suffer from severe dental problems leading to tooth loss, and they blame it on the water source.

Vietnam needs to have a comprehensive, unified set of rules to control water pollution in the country, because the problem has assumed very serious proportions, experts and officials said at a recent workshop.

The Song Lo protected forest in Thanh Hoa Province is being destroyed and forest rangers seem to be unable to control the situation.

Two Vietnamese pop stars have been co-opted into South Africa's campaign to save the rhino so that they can help spread the message in East Asia where demand for rhino horn is huge.

More than VN46 billion (US$2.1million) will be spent this year to plant one million new trees in HCM City to increase green cover and beautify city streets.

The environment protection agencies of Vietnam and the US should strengthen cooperation in the areas of mutual concern, including biological technology development, pollution control, and environmental protection in the river basin.

Nearly 3,000 residents in Pho Thanh Commune of central Quang Ngai Province have been living with a foul stench and odorous wastewater leaking from a nearby waste treatment facility in Duc Pho District.

Hundreds of households in Quang Binh Province have complained that the noise and dust from a local factory has been making life difficult there for seven years.

Hundreds of households in the Hoi Trung resettlement area in Ha Tinh Province have been facing serious shortages of clean water as the water in the area is heavily contaminated.

A contest titled “Teenagers with wildlife protection” has been launched in Hanoi as part of activities marking International Day for Biological Diversity (May 22).

Lack of food has caused wild elephants in Nghe An Province to trample through a number of villages recently.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has asked affected localities to preserve water in reservoirs and dredge rivers, canals and wells to mitigate the impact of drought and saline intrusion in the southern and central areas of the country.

Vietnam will have a modern tool to measure its greenhouse gas emissions, helping it to effectively respond to climate change, according to the Vietnam Investment Review.

An adult male gaur (Bos gaurus) has been discovered wandering around the Sao La Nature Reserve buffer zone, and scientists plan to return him to the Nam Cat Tien Nature Reserve.