AFP: Frozen tiger, bones seized in Vietnam: monitors

HANOI — A frozen young tiger and several kilograms of tiger bones have been seized by police in Vietnam, where only about 50 of the animals remain, an environmental group said in a statement received Monday.

Hanoi's environmental police found the frozen tiger, weighing 57 kilograms (125 pounds), in the boot of a "suspicious" taxi they stopped in the capital early last Thursday, the TRAFFIC wildlife trade monitoring network said.

They also found 11 kilograms of limb bones believed to come from two tigers, it said.

Environmental police believe the tiger had been transported from central Vietnam but it is not yet known whether it was a native big cat or whether it was wild or captive, said TRAFFIC.

The tiger seizure is the third in Hanoi this year after six tiger skins were found at a store in January and 23 kilograms of frozen tiger parts were recovered the following month, TRAFFIC said.

"These seizures show us just how serious the threat to Asia's remaining wild tigers is," said Nguyen Dao Ngoc Van, of TRAFFIC's Hanoi office.

Vietnam is a party to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, which lists tigers as a protected and endangered species.

Tigers are threatened by the loss of natural habitat from Asia's rapid urbanisation, and are also hunted for fur and body parts used in traditional Chinese medicine

Hotels caught breaking environmental regulations

Managers from the Ha Noi Sofitel Plaza Hotel and the Daewoo Hotel on Thursday admitted violating environmental regulations.
The Ha Noi Sofitel Plaza admitted failing to get permission before releasing untreated waste water into city sewers, said the municipal interdisciplinary inspectors under the chair of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.
The hotel installed a waste treatment facility using Australian technology in 1998 but the system has not been effectively used. Hotel management had paid little attention to maintenance of the system, said inspectors.
The hotel was found not to have a sterilising and deodorising facility. The hotel uses approximately 500 cubic meters of water per day.
Hotel management will be fined, in line with current regulations, and must set up a revised environmental protection plan, as well as apply for a licence to discharge waste water before December.
The Daewoo hotel also failed to submit legal documents proving their adoption of regulations on environmental protection and water resources.
Inspectors also checked waste water treatment at the National Hospital of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases in Hanoi and found that the hospital's waste water treatment system was not being used effectively. Although it is operating, waste water was found to be redirected from the system, rendering it useless.

Inflation Delivers a Blow to Vietnam’s Spirits -

Even the ghosts are suffering from inflation in Vietnam this year.
August is the month when Buddhists ply the hungry ghosts of the dead with food and wine and cigarettes and honor them with paper offerings that represent the good things in life: cars, houses, motorbikes, stereo sets, fancy suits.
But like everything else in Vietnam, these brightly colored offerings have risen steeply in price, and shopkeepers say people are buying fewer gifts to burn for the dead.
With inflation rising to 27 percent last month — the highest in Asia — and food prices 74 percent above those a year ago, Vietnam is suffering its first serious downturn since it moved from a command economy to an open market nearly two decades ago.
Last month the government raised the price of gasoline by 31 percent to an all-time high of 19,000 dong ($1.19) per liter (or roughly $4.50 a gallon). Diesel and kerosene prices rose still higher. The country’s fledgling stock market, which had been booming a year ago, has fallen in volume by 95 percent and is at a virtual standstill.
Squeezed on all sides, people are cutting back on food, limiting travel, looking for second jobs, delaying major purchases and waiting for the cost of a wedding to go down before marrying.
Some village women who traveled to Hanoi to sell special homemade candies for the hungry ghost festival say they have not earned enough this year to return home.
Given this slowdown, Vietnam, Asia’s youngest tiger, which had been growing by about 8 percent a year for the past decade, is scaling back its plans for growth and economic development.
Last month the Asian Development Bank forecast that growth would slow to 6.5 percent this year. Some economists say even that figure is probably too high. Trade and current-account deficits have widened.
The mood in Vietnam, after years of upward mobility, is tense, said Kim N. B. Ninh, the Asia Foundation’s country representative.
“I think people are pessimistic,” she said. “You sense a tougher environment, a more restricted environment, a more pessimistic environment. It’s a moment of turmoil, I think.”
Some are losing confidence in the ability of the government to manage the economy. And rumors of price increases have caused panic buying of fuel and rice.
“The government seems confused about how to deal with the difficulties, and they have been making some mistakes in running the economy,” said a young lawyer who spoke on condition of anonymity when criticizing the government.
In part, economists say, Vietnam is suffering from the worldwide economic downturn and from high inflation that has spread through Southeast Asia.
But they say the problems are also self-inflicted, the result of an overheated economy as Vietnam raced forward with inadequate safeguards. Too much capital, particularly from foreign investment, has collided with bottlenecks in infrastructure and capacity.
The education system, meanwhile, has produced too few skilled and semiskilled workers for Vietnam to move up quickly into more complex manufacturing industries.
Hundreds of strikes at the factories that have been engines of Vietnam’s growth are some of the sharpest signs of discontent.
Some of the factory workers who are leading Vietnam’s rise from poverty are returning to the countryside, according to the local press, unable to sustain an urban life on a factory wage.
“Some people who have been moving from rural areas to seek jobs in industrial zones are deciding that it is not worth it, and people are moving home,” said Ben Wilkinson, associate director of the Vietnam program at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
After a steep reduction in the poverty rate from 58 percent of the population in 1993 to around 15 percent last year, some people — including those who had bought their first motorbike or cellphone — are slipping back below the poverty line.
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung told the National Assembly in May that the number of households going hungry had doubled in one year.
Everywhere they turn these days, people in Vietnam see higher prices.
more info-->>Inflation Delivers a Blow to Vietnam’s Spirits - NYTimes.com

80% of Vietnam factories breach pollution rules

HANOI: Eight out of ten factories and industrial parks in Vietnam breach environmental regulations, state media reported on Thursday, citing a government study in the rapidly-industrialising country.

The survey of more than 400 enterprises found many "lacked even the most basic awareness of environmental issues," said the deputy head of the Environmental Protection Department, Nguyen Hoa Binh, according to the state-run Vietnam News daily.

Vietnam has seen more than seven per cent economic growth for over a decade, but the boom has taken a heavy environmental toll, turning many waterways into open sewers and leaving landscapes littered with toxic waste.

Binh said more than half the 418 enterprises in 41 cities and provinces inspected last year were fined for breaching pollution control rules. They included ship wreckyards and craft villages.

Less than one fifth of the enterprises visited by the inspectors had waste-water facilities of an acceptable standard, the report said.

Ministry inspectors are also investigating ship-builder Hyundai Vinashin for allegedly trying to dump 60 tons of toxic waste near a residential area in Khanh Hoa province last week, reported the Sai Gon Giai Phong newspaper.

Natural Resources and Environment Minister Pham Khoi Nguyen said the ministry was investigating the contract between the shipyard and the man hired to transport and dump the waste on July 8, the report said.

A World Bank study this month said "the cost to the economy of pollution, which is increasing in volume and toxicity, are becoming evident to the government and the public at large."

Delhi will soon get another forest

As part of its "Green Delhi" drive, Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit formally inaugurated a new city forest to come up at Chhawla village on the bank of Najafgarh drain in southwest Delhi on Saturday. On the occasion, over 160 children went about planting 1,000-odd saplings in the designated space. Some 12,000 more saplings are to be planted at the site over the next few weeks.
In all, the Delhi government plans to set up nine forests in different parts of the city during the drive.
Speaking on the occasion, Ms Dikshit said that Delhi was one of the greenest capitals in the world. Delhi would soon have 32 city forests, she said. Nine of them were set up last year whereas 14 were in existence before that. With this, Delhi’s green cover would go up beyond 20 per cent of its total area, she said.
Chhawla city forest is being developed on a 12-hectare piece of land which belonged to the department of irrigation and flood control.
This has now been handed over to the department of environment which has constructed a boundary wall around the land.
The location was chosen keeping in view the need for urban recreation and quality green spaces in the city from the point of view of the environment.
It would also act as potential habitat for resident and migratory wildlife in urban and nearby areas. Among tree species that will find a home at the new forest are neem, jamun, arjun, kajalia, amaltas, shisham, begonia, bakain etc.

“Asian Bill Gates” $200mil project in Vietnam

Around 300,000ha of bare hills in Vietnam will be covered with green thanks to an afforestation project, which is said to be the largest so far. The project was initiated by Steve Chang, who is called the “Asian Bill Gates”.
Dean Wu, General Director of InnovGreen, which is implementing this project in Vietnam, talks about the project.
Why did you think of planting forests in Vietnam?
We see that Vietnam has vast vacant, unproductive forest land. Vietnam has many unused natural sources and it lacks capital to invest in this field.
There are three advantages in Vietnam that are good for this project. They are good weather, spacious unused forest land, and an abundant workforce.
We also see that the global environment is getting hot and we lack trees, but in many developing countries where there are rich resources, they invest in building factories. So we want to be an example of a business that makes the environment green.
What is the purpose of this project? Where will the project be carried out and how did you choose the places?
We selected areas where there are many unused bare hills. We will grow forests in five provinces: Quang Ninh, Lang Son, Nghe An, Kon Tum, and Quang Nam. Last year we planted eucalyptus in Quang Ninh and some trees are now over 5m high.
We plan to build a 40ha nursery with a yearly capacity of 5 million saplings. This year we will grow forests in all five above provinces.
The project aims to create jobs for local people. In Quang Ninh, we brought jobs for over 1,000 farmers during their leisure time.
Based on this project, other projects to produce bamboo products, pulp, paper, and cardboard for export will be implemented and they will create more jobs for local residents and contribute to hunger eradication and poverty reduction, improve the environment and mitigate natural calamities.
In the past 30 years, our Chairman, Steve Chang, has followed and has succeeded in protecting network security and now he wants to test his ability in environmental protection.
Last year Trend Micro’s profit was $300 million. If we relied on afforestation, when would we be able to obtain such profit? Our goal is building a social business, a green business to protect the environment, not seeing profit as top priority.
The eucalyptus forest in Quang Ninh Province
Some scientists say growing forests with only one kind of tree will lessen the biodiversity of that region. What do you think about this? And how will your project contribute to Vietnam’s biodiversity?
I think that opinion is correct. But we are trying to diversify trees in our forests. We will invite experts to help us in this field.
Some modern technologies will be used in this project. What are they?
We are using the latest GIS and GPS technologies to supervise and manage the forests. We also stick chipsets to some trees to watch the growth of trees scientifically. Advanced technologies are applied at our nursery to reduce environment pollution and raise the ratio of living trees.
Steve Chang is the Chairman of Trend Micro (Taiwan), one of the world’s leading groups in developing anti-virus software. In 1988 Steve Chang established Trend Micro with $5,000. In 2006, Trend Micro’s turnover was $850 million and employed over 2,000 employees in 137 countries and territories. Trend Micro accounts for 55% of the Asian market for anti-virus software. He is called the “Asian Bill Gates”. He was on the list of the 22 most powerful persons in Asia in 2001 released by ZDNET Asia. He was presented the Asian Star Award in 1999 by Business Week, and called The Founder of 2004 by Asia Business Leader Awards.
Steve Chang recently decided to invest $255 million in afforestation and processing wood in Vietnam through InnovGreen Group. This firm is the largest foreign investor in Vietnam’s forestry sector.