Vietnam will required up to VND1.9 trillion (US$120 million) for a program to recover mangrove forests throughout the country from now to 2015 to cope with the increasing impacts of climate change on the farming sector, state media reported.
“The program will be carried out soon under an Action Plan that hoped to forecast and diminish the effects of climate change on the farming industry,” Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Dao Xuan Hoc was cited by the Vietnam News as saying.
The initial stage result will be used as a foundation for the ministry to work out comprehensive policies and strategies to deal with long-term clime change effects.
Doctor Phan Nguyen Hong, from the Vietnam Mangrove Forest Ecological System Research Center, said that mangrove recovery was of great importance in dealing with frequent tidal surges, which are caused by climate change.
He said natural mangrove forests and other wave-resistant trees, can act as walls against tidal surges, adding that the mangroves’ interlacing roots can also block surging tides from hitting the man-made dyke systems.
Mangrove forests also provide shelter for a range of species, such as snails and small crabs, and as such can help maintain ecological diversity, Hong added.
Deputy Director of the Science, Technology and Environment Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), Nguyen Binh Thin, said that the ministry had taken climate change seriously, and various projects dealing with its impacts were underway.
The MARD was also looking for supports from international donors and non-governmental organizations to better deal with the climate change impacts on the farming sector, on which some 75 per cent of Vietnam population depend on.
According to the MARD, drought has plagued the farming sector over the past decade, causing huge damages to both humans and property, especially in the central highlands.
Damages to the farming industry following the drought spell between late 1997 and early 1998, for example, were worth up to VND1.4 trillion (US$87.5 million). (VNS)
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