The Covid 19 pandemic has been upended the world for the last two years, causing dramatic losses of human lives and social and economic disruption. Along with immeasurable losses, the pandemic has also entailed socio-economic changes and humanity's perception of the world we are dwelling in. The virus that causes the Covid-19 pandemic is likely to originate from wild animals. Although this is not a firm conclusion up to this point, it is a deeper warning than ever about the human way of life, which exploits nature indiscriminately, causes ecosystems to deteriorate, and leads to irreversible damages.

Workshop “Promoting the Role of Ethnic Minority and Mountainous Communities in Environmental Protection”
Hai Phong, September 25th, 2020 – PanNature, in cooperation with the National Assembly’s Committee for Ethnic Affairs, held a workshop “Promoting the Role of Ethnic Minority and Mountainous Communities in Environmental Protection – Orientation, Mechanisms, and Policies in the Environmental Protection Law”.
The workshop attracted the participation of various representatives from the Committee for Ethnic Affairs, Department for Ethnic Affairs under the National Assembly Office, representatives of several provincial delegations for the National Assembly, some environmental organizations, experts and scientists, and media agencies.

Presentations, speeches, and discussion in the workshop focused on the process of implementation of existing Environmental Protection Law, clarifying the advantages and disadvantages in practice, especially for ethnic minority communities and mountainous areas. In addition, the breakthroughs in the new Environmental Protection Law (being revised) and the consistency and synchronization in management of Environmental Protection Law and existing legislation system were also discussed to offer the recommendations for the revised law.

The outputs from the workshop will be considered and developed to contribute to a joint report on the verification of the Environmental Protection Law by the Committee for Ethnic Affairs.
For more information about the workshop, please access it here.