Sweden’s experience in environmental land management and models of integrating environmental and land use issues were the topic of a seminar in Hanoi on May 13. The seminar, held by the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment, is part of the Vietnamese-Swedish cooperation programme on Strengthening Environmental Management and Land Administration (SEMLA).
According to the SEMLA projects representative, combining land use and the environment is the main goal of a pilot project to plan how land is used.
Experiences gained by Quan Ba district in northern mountainous Ha Giang province in land use management combined with environmental protection show that managers can make good decisions after consulting the community and raising local peoples awareness of the environment.
With assistance from Sweden, the SEMLA programme, which will run from 2005 to 2009, aims to improve the control of pollution at national, provincial and local levels as well as providing an efficient and impartial service when recording land registration, information, planning and land valuations.