A master plan is expected to increase efficiency in the currently weak management of biodiversity, a national seminar on biodiversity in Ha Noi heard yesterday.
The first draft of the blueprint will be completed by the end of the year, said Associate Professor Pham Binh Quyen, director of the Sustainable Environment Development Institute, speaking on the sidelines of the National Environment Conference.
"The master plan would be a key tool in managing biodiversity. There's no way for the management of biodiversity in Viet Nam to prove adequate without it," he said.
The biodiversity preservation master plan would include the management and protection of natural eco-system, a map of future protected areas, the management of protected areas and people living in these areas.
The blueprint, drafted by the Biodiversity Preservation Department and Nature Protection Association, is expected to address the unclear and overlapping responsibilities held by different Government authorities, including the ministries of Agriculture and Development, and of Natural Resources and the Environment.
The current management of all protected areas in Viet Nam remained inadequate and inefficient, said Quyen.
The Yook Don National Park in the Central Highlands Province of Dak Lak or Vu Quang National Park in central Ha Tinh Province, for instance, used to have a diverse ecosystem but both had been destroyed, he said.
"The recently reported presence of wild elephants and tigers in some areas shows the fact that some protected areas are not big enough. Tigers, for instance, need to move over an average distance of 100km in one night, and elephants need 50-70km," a scientist told the seminar.
Therefore, a scientific plan was an essential move in terms of environmental protection, outlined in the Law on Biodiversity, which took effect in 2008, said Dr Pham Anh Cuong, deputy head of the General Administration of Environment's Biodiversity Preservation Department.
The master plan, as well as the Law on Biodiversity itself, showed the great attention paid by the Vietnamese Government to the issue as only a few other countries, including Hungary, South Africa and Peru, had such a specialised legal framework, said Quyen.
Viet Nam is among 16 countries with the highest biodiversity in the world, with many new species still being discovered, said professor Dang Huy Huynh, chairman of the Viet Nam Zoology Association.
However, in common with global trends, Vietnamese biodiversity was rapidly deteriorating, despite the efforts being made.
A total of 882 wild faunal and floral species in Viet Nam were recorded in the 2007 national Red Book of endangered species, an increase of 161, or 15 per cent, against the figure published in the previous Red Book in 1996, said Cuong.
Nine of the species mentioned in the 1996 Red Book were now extinct, he said.
"Biodiversity is of great importance. We have already taken it into account but more efforts should be spent on its protection in the time to come," said Professor Truong Quang Hoc of Ha Noi National University.
"As a high-ranking UN official said, if Viet Nam spends US$1 million protecting its biodiversity, it will be able to save $7 billion in the future," Hoc said.
