The World Environment Day (June 5), launched by the UN Environment Programme, has been celebrated in Vietnam since 1982 and become a nationwide movement, helping raise public awareness of environmental protection, biodiversity conservation, sustainable development, and climate change response. This year, the day is themed "Land restoration, desertification and drought resilience”. All-level Party Committees and administrations in Hoa Binh province continue to view improving awareness, restoring land, and fighting drought and desertification as an indispensable part of the socio-economic development plan and an important task during the sustainable development process.
Young people in Chieng Chau commune, Mai Chau district, clean up a road to Lac village.
According to the provincial People’s Committee, natural disasters caused losses worth over 129 billion VND (5 million USD) in Hoa Binh in 2023. In particular, prolonged and widespread heat last year resulted in water levels of many local rivers and springs falling down to below the dead level. This situation may repeat in 2024 as the province’s hydro-meteorological station forecast strong heats will continue this summer, posing risk of widespread drought and water shortage.
Pham Thi Hoa, head of the environmental protection division, said risks of land erosion, drought, and desertification have never been so obvious like at present. This year’s World Environment Day is themed "Land restoration, desertification and drought resilience” to appeal to countries around the globe to work together to restore land, fight desertification, and improve drought resilience, thus slowing down climate change, protecting the nature, and improving livelihoods and food security for billions of people worldwide.
Viewing environmental protection as a foundation, focal factor, and prerequisite for sustainable economic development, Hoa Binh is pressing on with comprehensive solutions to protect the environment and cope with climate change.
In particular, it is stepping up the implementation of the 2020 Law on Environmental Protection and the document guiding the implementation of the law; the Government and the province’s programmes, resolutions, decisions, and directives on active response to climate change, environmental protection, and greenhouse gas emission reduction; measures for responding to heat, drought, water shortages, and saltwater intrusion; along with carbon credit management.
Local authorities are reviewing and monitoring the land environment quality; building and implementing plans to treat and restore polluted land areas; and devising measures for prenventing and minimising drought and desertification.
Coordination is being enhanced among all-level authorities, sectors, and localities while conditions are created for locals to access anti-drought and desertification information and techniques.
Efforts are being stepped up to protect and develop forests, efficiently use land resources, develop livelihoods for residents in desertifying areas and those at risk of desertification. Advanced solutions are also being considered and applied to efficiently use water resources and protect land surface.
Besides, Hoa Binh is working to improve public awareness. It identifies land restoration and drought and desertification prevention as an indispensable part of the socio-economic development plan and also an important task during the sustainable development process.
The province will also expand effective models of land restoration and drought and desertification prevention, especially in the areas directly affected by natural phenomena.
Various emulation movements have been rolled out in Mai Chau district of Hoa Binh province over the past years, encouraging local farmers to promote business and production for sustainable poverty alleviation as well as restructuring of crops and livestock for better incomes. The movements have attracted enthusiastic response from members of the district farmers’ union, particularly ethnic people.
Senior women in rural and ethnic minority areas are considered an abundant labour workforce, as people in the working age have often worked far away from home in recent years. Therefore, many units, departments, sectors and cooperatives in Hoa Binh have worked with enterprises inside and outside the province to generate jobs for the local women.
The northern province of Hoa Binh has over 74% of its population belonging to ethnic minority groups, who mainly reside in remote, far-flung, and disadvantaged areas. Therefore, the implementation of Project 2 on planning, arranging, and settling residential areas under the National Target Programme for Socio-Economic Development in Ethnic Minority and Mountainous Areas is important in building a better living environment for locals.
A working delegation from the Ministry of Health led by Deputy Minister Do Xuan Tuyen inspected the provision of vitamin A for children in Cao Phong district on June 1.
Right on the occasion of the 134th anniversary of Uncle Ho's birthday (May 19th, 1890 - May 19th, 2024), the Public Security of Lac Son District organized a donation of breeding cows to the two families in extremely difficult circumstances: Mr. Bui Van Quyet's household from Trang Doi hamlet, Yen Phu commune; Mrs. Bui Thi Dien's household from Com street, Vu Ban town.
In the morning of May 29th, at the Cultural House of Lac Son district, the Provincial Youth Communist Union - Vietnam Youth Union of the province held the launching ceremony of the Volunteering Youth Campaign in the summer of 2024, responding to the peak day of the new rural construction. There was the attendance of Mr. Bui Van Luyen, the Standing Vice Chairman of the Provincial Vietnam Fatherland Front.
