Vietnam

Every year for the past decade or so, Vietnam has faced paper shortages. This year is no exception. In May 2008, Vietnam's newspapers reported that publishing houses and printers were facing difficulties in buying supplies. The shortages were happening even though the country's two biggest pulp and paper mills, Bai Bang and Tan Mai were operating at full capacity and paper imports had increased sharply during the first months of the year.

A series of large dams are currently proposed for the Sekong River Basin in southern Laos. In addition to the tens of thousands of people in Laos who would be affected by these projects, the livelihoods of 30,000 people living along the Sekong River downstream in Cambodia are also under threat. Yet the dams are being planned with no consideration of the impact on people and the environment in Cambodia.

Vietnam's paper industry is booming. In 1995, paper production stood at 220,000 tonnes. In 2007, the Vietnam Paper Association aims to produce more than one million tonnes of paper. Demand far exceeds supply and in 2006, Vietnam imported 709,000 tonnes of paper products. A large proportion of paper produced is for packaging - a result of Vietnam's expanding export economy.

“During our time together, we heard directly from local community representatives from twelve provinces in Cambodia and also from other countries in the region about how their lives, livelihoods and environments are affected by large plantations in their respective areas.”

Like many other Indigenous Peoples, the Katu in Laos depend on the forests for their livelihoods. Living in the heavily forested Annamite Mountains near the Vietnamese border, the Katu in Laos practise shifting cultivation and hunt and gather much of their food, fibres, medicines and building materials in the forest. Until recently, that is.

Illegal logging is rampant in Vietnam. Vietnamese newspapers frequently report on new logging scandals. A few examples from last year illustrate the point. In January, the People's Army Newspaper ran a story about the arrest of "notorious timber trader" Nguyen Van Hung. In June, Labour Newspaper reported that railway guardsmen had stopped the transportation of illegally logged timber on a train. And November saw the conclusion of the biggest ever illegal logging case in the central highlands.

The March-June edition of the magazine "Watershed" focuses on the issue of tree plantations in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam as part of the broader picture of the spread of industrial tree plantations in the South. This edition of Watershed is the result of a collaborative effort between a large number of individuals and organizations --mostly from within but also from outside the Mekong region-- concerned over the social and environmental impacts resulting from large-scale tree monocultures.

The Vietnamese government responded brutally to peaceful demonstrations by Indigenous Peoples in the Central Highlands of Vietnam in April. Police used tear gas, electric truncheons and water cannons to prevent demonstrators from entering Buon Ma Thuot, the capital city of Dak Lak province. The police were helped by men armed with metal bars, shovels, and machetes. At least 10 people were killed and hundreds of people were wounded. Many people did not return to their villages after the protests and are still missing.

Just meters beyond the outer wall of Tan Mai Paper mill, a thriving industry exists in the shade of coconut trees. In ponds where rice fields used to lie, local villagers stand chest deep in wastewater from the factory. Young men strain to lift nets out of the ponds, filled to the brim with the catch of the day: paper fiber emitted in the mill's wastewater.

Jordan Ryan, the head of the United Nations Development Programme in Vietnam, is keen on sustainable development. In May 2002, at the launch of a partnership between aid agencies, NGOs and government ministries to protect Vietnam’s environment, Ryan announced, “If we succeed, one day it will be said of this new partnership: ‘It made sustainable development a reality in Vietnam.’” A few weeks later, this time at the signing of a $2 million project called Vietnam Agenda 21, Ryan said, “The challenge is to make sustainable development a reality in Vietnam.”

Vietnam's karst landscapes are world renowned. Perhaps the country's most famous limestone scenery is at Ha Long Bay, which has been declared a World Heritage Site. In 1962, the karst landscape at Cuc Phuong in northern Vietnam became the country's first national park. As well as producing spectacular scenery, limestone is the main raw material for cement manufacture and many karst landscapes are under threat. Vietnam is no exception.

On 24 October 2002, provincial authorities announced the suspension of construction of the new 130,000 tons a year pulp and paper mill at Dac To in Kontum province, in Vietnam's Central Highlands. The state-run Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported that construction was stopped because of "a failure to draw up a credible master plan". Six months earlier, during a two-day trip to Kontum, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Cong Tan had demanded that the Vietnam Paper Company, Vinapimex, must publish a plan indicating where the raw materials were to come from to feed the mill.