Environmental issues in Vietnam

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Environmental issues in Vietnam are numerous and varied. This is due in part to the effects of the Vietnam War, and also because of Vietnam's rapid industrialization following the economic reforms in 1986 known as Doi Moi, amongst other reasons. Officially, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam lists environmental issues to include land, water, geology and minerals, and seas and islands, amongst others.^[1]

According to the State of the Environment 2001 published by the government, the main environmental issues in Vietnam are land degradation, forest degradation, loss of biodiversity, water pollution, air pollution and solid waste management.^[2] However, the issues which the environmental movement in Vietnam is concerned with sometimes fall outside these official categories. For example, according to a World Bank study in 2007,^[3] climate change has become a major concern because Vietnam is expected to be seriously impacted by climate related consequences in the years to come.

As regards the responsibility for the management of environmental issues in Vietnam, under the aforementioned MONRE, the Vietnamese Environment Administration (VEA) was established by the Prime Minister on 30 September 2008.^[4] The VEA manages environmental issues in Vietnam at the national level. At the provincial level, the Departments of Natural Resources and the Environment (DONRE) are responsible.

Environmental protection has generally gained policy and public attention. A large number of environmental regulations have been issued since the country's economic reform in the 1990s. The regulations include the Law on Environmental Protection, first issued in 1993, revised in 2005, 2012, and 2020. Political wishes of international integration and increasing public demand for cleaner environment have been key drivers for Vietnam’s environmental policy.^[5]

The Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) and Vietnamese party-state are not the only actors playing key roles as far as environmental issues are concerned. The environmental movement, part of Vietnam's civil society, consisting of grassroots organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the Institute of Ecological Economics, is also a significant actor. In this entry, the history of the role which the environmental movement in Vietnam has played in influencing how environmental issues have unfolded and been perceived by the state and by society will be examined.