Mongabay Series:
Part 1 – Will climate change sink the Mekong Delta?
Part 2 – Vietnam sweats bullets as China and Laos dam the Mekong
Part 3 – Mother Nature and a hydropower onslaught aren’t the Mekong Delta’s only problems
Part 4 – A plan to save the Mekong Delta

13 October 2016 / David Brown

Climate change and dams going in upstream are threatening to render the crucial region unviable. But are the Delta’s biggest problems of Vietnam’s own making?

• Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, home to nearly 20 million people, is one of the most highly productive agricultural environments in the world, thanks in part to an elaborate network of canals, dikes, sluice gates and drainage ditches.
• On the strength of Delta agriculture, Vietnam has gone from a chronic importer of rice to a major exporter.
• But farmers in the region are critical of the government’s food security policies, which mandate that most of the Delta’s land be devoted to rice production. And many of them are taking measures to circumvent those rules, in ways that aren’t always friendly to the environment.
• That’s just one example of how water and land-use policy in the Delta is undermining efforts to protect the vulnerable region from climate change and upstream development.

This is the third article of an in-depth, four-part series exploring threats facing the Mekong Delta and how they might be addressed. Read the  first, second, third and fourth installments. Tiếp tục đọc “Mongabay series: Mother Nature and a hydropower onslaught aren’t the Mekong Delta’s only problems” →