The National Conference on Combating Desertification, organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the World Bank (WB), took place in Hanoi on June 17. The conference called for immediate action to combat desertification.
The conference conveyed the message: “If we do not act, desertification will strike us; let’s do everything we can to restore the green to the white land“.
In order to mitigate the risk of desertification, this conference aimed to launch the implementation of national programs against desertification, with the objective of eliminating or reducing the causes of land desertification; restoring and stabilizing the production capacity of areas that have been desertified and degraded.
Representatives from UNDP and WB indicated that, with the messages from the International Year of Combating Desertification, foreign partners are committed to supporting Vietnam in implementing environmental improvement projects in four priority areas for combating desertification and land degradation, including the Central Coastal region, the upper reaches of the Da River, the Long Xuyen Quadrangle, and the Central Highlands.
Deputy Minister of MARD, Hua Duc Nhi, stated that among the 21 million hectares of land currently used for agricultural and forestry cultivation in Vietnam, there are up to 9.34 million hectares of degraded land, primarily consisting of barren and degraded hill areas that are at serious risk of further degradation.
Although Vietnam does not have large concentrated desert areas covering hundreds of thousands of hectares, the area of land affected by desertification or degradation is scattered throughout the country, leading to a decline in land, water, mineral, and environmental resources, with an increasingly widespread scale that significantly hinders economic growth in localities.
