Strategy sets targets for biodiversity preservation
Vietnam will expand the area of protected natural reserves by 2020 in line with the National Strategy on Biodiversity, which was introduced at a workshop in Hanoi on September 24.
The function was organised by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to receive opinions to the draft master plan on biodiversity preservation until 2020 with a vision to 2030.
Accordingly, the area of natural reserves on land will account for 9 percent of the territory while marine reserves will cover 0.24 percent of the sea by 2020.
Afforestation will be about 45 percent and 0.57 million hectares of primeval forests, with the area of mangrove forests remaining at the current level, and 15 percent of the degraded important natural ecosystem area will be rehabilitated.
Under this strategy, Vietnam will house 10 Ramsar sites, 10 biosphere reserves and 10 ASEAN heritage parks by 2020.
By 2030, it will recover 25 percent of the area of degraded natural ecosystems while preserving and sustainably using its biodiversity to benefit people and the national socio-economic development.
The Vietnam Red Book 2007 listed 882 species (including 418 fauna and 464 flora species) as endangered, 161 species more than the 1992 figure including nine rare species on the verge of extinction in Vietnam.
Vietnam is now one of the five countries most vulnerable to climate change, which critically threatens its biodiversity.