Protecting Ba Vi from Tourism Development
Update: 06/02/2009
One of the largest mountainous districts in former Ha Tay province (now a part of Hanoi), Ba Vi is linked to other provinces and Hanoi via National Highway 32, Provincial Highway 89A and the Lang-Hoa Lac Highway, as well as via some 70 km of Hong and Da Riverway. With such good transportation, it is easy for people in Ba Vi to reach the outer world and equally easy for people, investors and tourists for example, to reach Ba Vi.
Something like 10 tourist resorts have been built in Ba Vi over the last few years and those that are doing well want to expand to the very border of Ba Vi National Park in the pursuit of profits. Such expansion would, of course, affect the natural environment within the park and there would surely be pollution and destruction of fauna and flora in these buffer areas.
Le Xuan Canh, the director of the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources, said that Ba Vi has many marketable natural resources and agricultural development should be expected. There are forests, hills, gardens, rice fields, plain and alluvial soil along the large rivers in the district. The rivers, lakes and springs in Ba Vi have long been farmed using traditional farming methods and there are also areas where experimental high-tech, environmentally-friendly farming methods are being used. Hanoi's border was expanded for many reasons, one being to obtain control over more agricultural area. However, greater profit can be made by a few when the land is used to build resorts and golf courses, and this is what is happening. In addition, a lot of farm land in the buffer areas around Ba Vi Mountain is being sold for non-farming purposes. Scientists have pointed out that beautiful, natural areas are being lost and this will continue to happen unless Hanoi adopts a policy that restricts the use of the mountain and hill areas of Ba Vi. Such action would also protect the interests of thousands of farming families, many of them of various ethnicities, who now find themselves in the path of Hanoi developers.
Dr. Ngo Kieu Oanh of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology said that she's concerned about Hanoi's actions in first absorbing lands surrounding the old city and then planning to turn this land into new urban areas. This should not be done until all factors are considered: society, culture, economy, the environment and more. The city's expansion should not occur at the expense of what still remains a fairly natural environment in which exist valuable species of fauna and flora. Ba Vi National Park must be preserved because it has not yet been polluted and the area near Ba Vi could be used to grow organic food for urban inhabitants. For this reason, investors should not be allowed to build resorts at the edge of Ba Vi National Park, a park which is itself less than 10,000 ha in size. In addition, current poaching laws should be enforced to prevent the further destruction of the forest trees, birds and animals in the Ba Vi Mountain area and buffer zones.
Professor, Doctor of Science Dang Huy Huynh, the chairman of the Vietnam Zoology Association, said that in the primeval forest of Ba Vi Mountain live a wide varieties of creatures and plants. Balansa, a French botanist, found 5,000 species in the Ba Vi primeval forest to include in the Dictionary of Indochina Flora, including many species of valuable medicinal herbs. In the buffer zone at lower elevations surrounding Ba Vi Mountain can be found hill chickens forest bees, rabbits, tea, vegetables, tubors, fruits and hot springs. Professor Huynh said that the area must be zoned to make certain areas off limits to developers and allow the creatures of Ba Vi National Park to flourish. A green belt surrounding the park is needed and in that area organic food could be grown. Huynh warned that if the buffer zone around Ba Vi Mountain is destroyed as a result of rapid tourism development, the fauna and flora of the park which has existed there for thousands of years will die out. As you read this, a great number of vehicles and tourists are coming to visit resorts in Ba Vi. With local tourists comes their hunger for wild meat, a mounting trash problem and improved transportation, which makes it easier to remove natural resources.
Professor Dang Huy Huynh contacted Hanoi People's Committee Chairman Nguyen The Thao to ask what specifically is being done to prevent the degradation of Ba Vi National Park. Chairman Nguyen The Thao commended Professor Huynh and his colleagues on their desire to protect nature. Other than that, he said that he will be asking various departments and organizations to speak with scientists to consider how a plan might be made to protect Ba Vi National Park.