Vo, former deputy minister of Natural Resources and Environment, together with representatives from relevant ministries and international institutions, yesterday discussed the Viet Nam Development Report 2011 in Ha Noi.
The report, drawn up by the World Bank and 16 partners, is aimed at reforming the agenda of the Vietnamese Government as well as harmonising development partner support. It addresses the most important development topics of Viet Nam including the efficiency, environmental sustainability and equity of land, water, forests, marine and mineral resources.
Professor Vo agreed that the assignment of more secure and sustainable property rights as well as increasing the market price of natural resource in Viet Nam would result in better management.
He added that, without proper land right allocation, natural resources would keep being depleted as few would care about what did not belong to them.
In relation to a community benefit-sharing scheme, fair market value compensation for poverty expropriation, improved information access, transparency in governance and public participation, Vo said that the low participation of local people in supervising management made transparency lower and that judgement in environmental issues were low.
Douglas J Graham, from the World Bank, said while community-sharing schemes were carried out effectively in many countries, it only started in Viet Nam.
According to the report, although Viet Nam had good marine resources, yield kept declining during the last 30 years due to over - fishing, outdated technology and destructive tools.
Bui Dinh Chung, former director of the Research Institute of Marine Products, said that marine resources contributed greatly to the GDP of Viet Nam as well as offering vast job opportunities.
The report revealed that the marine sector contributed US$ 6 billion, as much as 7 per cent of the 2009 GDP, and employed 4 million people.
Chung added that, although Viet Nam was capable of catching 2 million tonnes of fish per year, the economic efficiency of this type of fishing was low due to low quality products caused by backward processing and fishing technology.
The country lacked a trained fishing force, Chung explained, adding that the fishing community was often the poorest and most vulnerable.
"They could lose everything; having nothing to eat after a storm," he said.
The problem is that local people do not get the chance to increase their skills or invest in modern facilities.
Chung said that the fishermen should be allocated water righs so that they could increase the efficiency of their careers.
The report suggested that, for environmental purposes, Viet Nam remove 50,000 out of 130,000 old and unsafe fishing boats that caused more pollution than anything else.
Viet Nam should pay more attention to developing sea management parks, Chung said, adding that the current number of parks was not enough to effectively manage 1 million sq.km of coastline.
Regarding forest management, To Xuan Phuc, who gained a PhD from the Centre for Agricultural Research and Ecological Studies at the Ha Noi Agriculture University, said that the Vietnamese timber processing industry had grown fast, but not sustainably as 80 per cent of timber still had to be imported while the country had over 13 million ha of forest itself.
While 3,400 timber companies had money to grow forests, they did not have enough land. Ethnic people, on the other hand, were allocated land to grow forests, but did not have enough, Phuc said.
He added that the Government should create better conditions for investors to grow sustainable forests in Viet Nam with low interest loans and stable investment regimes.
The forestry sector, although having been estimated to be in need of around US$400 million of investment per year, only managed to scrape together investments of around $50 million per year.
Phuc said that forest development and protection, based on ODA, was not sustainable enough. If the private sector had an incentive, they could help make development much more sustainable, he added.
Source: VNS