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Vietnam.net
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/tech/2007/06/712127/
Over 20 million people affected by desertification
VietNamNet Bridge – Of 9 million hectares of fallow land in Vietnam, accounting for 28% of the total area, 4.3 million hectares are becoming desert, affecting the lives of more than 20 million people.
The number was reported at a conference to implement the national action programme to prevent desertification organised by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on June 28. According to the ministry, of the 4.3 million hectares of land that are becoming desert, nearly 90% is bare land and bare hills which is strongly retrograding and land that is turning into laterite owing to deforestation and irrational use of land. Land of this kind is mainly in four regions: the coastal area of the central region, the northwestern region, the Long Xuan quadriangle and the Central Highlands.
At the conference, attendants agreed on some solutions to prevent desertification, including: planting protective forest, developing irrigation systems to improve sand soil, alkaline soil, and salted soil, building dykes to prevent sand encroachment, and implementing an early warning system to mitigate the consequences of droughts.
The central province of Quang Tri has successfully applied some methods to improve 30,000ha of sand land, for example planting 8,000ha of forest, building 19 ecological villages, digging tens of kilometres of canals to bring water to the sand area.
Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Hua Duc Nhi said that Vietnam would carry out projects to prevent desertification with a total investment of US$192 million. International donors have approved three projects worth $8.2 million on the sustainable management of forestry and improving desert land.
The Ministry of Planning and Investment has also submitted to the Government a plan to develop productive forest in the 2007-2015 period with total capital of VND40,000 billion (US$2.5 billion) and over VND14,600 billion ($912.5 million) for a project growing 5 million hectares of forest.
(Source: VNE)
