September 27, 2019, By Vietnam Weekly
I hadn't intended for this to be an entirely environmental/climate edition of the newsletter, but turns out that's what this is - plus most of the international coverage this week has been about either the trade war or the East Sea, which I don't need to add to.
Reuters reports that six Mekong Delta provinces are urgently trying to stop severe erosion along local waterways. This is a good time to revisit the same outlet's January field report from the delta.
Ca Mau, Vietnam's southern-most province, has asked for US$41 million in government funding to undertake emergency action against erosion. Three of the province's districts are losing up to 50 meters of land each month, while 38 kilometers of land along rivers has been washed away. A devastating combination of rising sea levels, sand mining for construction, and the completion of numerous upstream dams on the Mekong River is wreaking havoc on this area.
Tuoi Tre has a look at this topic as well, while VnExpress reports that Nha Be and Can Gio, two outlying districts of Saigon, also face severe erosion.
To circle back to the start, air pollution and coastal erosion, both exacerbated by climate change, are badly impacting daily life for millions of people in Vietnam as we speak, yet a group of youths won't be allowed to raise awareness of those facts in public today.
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