In a post dated Aug. 11, Nguyen noted that Tien Hai is part of the broader Red River Delta Biosphere Reserve. Established in 2004, the biosphere reserve spans 137,261 hectares (339,179 acres), including a core area, buffer zone and transition zone across terrestrial and marine areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe core area, the heart of the biosphere reserve, includes Tien Hai Nature Reserve and Xuan Thuy National Park,\u201d Nguyen wrote.<\/p>\n
When created in 2014, the Tien Hai reserve included 1,430 hectares (3,534 acres) of forested land and 11,050 hectares (27,305 acres) of wetlands and mudflats, the latter of which includes swaths of rehabilitated coastal mangrove forests.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWith the reduction of Tien Hai\u2019s area to 1,320 hectares, the Thai Binh Provincial People\u2019s Committee may have put an end to the Red River Biosphere Reserve,\u201d Nguyen wrote.<\/p>\n
He added that if the reserve loses a majority of its core area, UNESCO, the U.N. agency that designates which areas qualify as biosphere reserves, can consider withdrawing the title; this reserve is subject to an assessment by Sept. 30, 2024.<\/p>\n
According to\u00a0UNESCO\u2019s website, \u201cMangroves and intertidal habitats of the Red River Delta form wetlands of high biodiversity, especially in the Xuan Thuy and Tien Hai districts. These wetlands are of global importance as migratory sites for several bird species.\u201d<\/p>\n
A representative of UNESCO\u2019s Vietnam office didn\u2019t respond to multiple requests for comment.<\/p>\n
Nguyen said this plan went against conservation efforts initiated by the Vietnamese government.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government and donors have invested a lot of money in this biosphere reserve through mangrove restoration and development programs,\u201d he wrote. \u201cReducing this forest in Thai Binh clearly goes against the province\u2019s jurisdiction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nguyen\u2019s advocacy quickly generated coverage in Vietnam\u2019s\u00a0state media outlets. Thai Binh officials defended the decision, saying it aligns with a\u00a02019 decision\u00a0signed by then-prime minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on the development of the Thai Binh Economic Zone.<\/p>\n
Indeed, in May 2022, the current prime minister, Pham Minh Chinh,\u00a0visited Thai Binh\u00a0to check on the progress of this economic zone and said local leaders should develop coastal areas to avoid problems with land clearance, a major issue when it comes to using land people already live on.<\/p>\n This sort of thinking is exactly what Pamela McElwee, associate professor of human ecology at Rutgers University in the U.S. and author of Forests Are Gold: Trees, People, and Environmental Rule in Vietnam, has warned about.<\/p>\n \u201cAny time there is a local plan to convert a natural area into a developed area, the logic is simple: it\u2019s cheaper than trying to plan a golf course in an area that you might have to buy back lots of individual local land plots or use eminent domain to put together a large enough land area,\u201d McElwee said in an email. \u201cHence local areas look greedily at converting parks or protected areas as a quick and cheap solution to their land needs for large-scale development planning.\u201d<\/p>\n McElwee, who has done field research in Tien Hai, said officials want such issues to boil down to \u201cjobs and development vs. trees,\u201d since they think such framing works in their favor.<\/p>\n \u201cBut this is wrong for two reasons: one, many local development plans are not going to bring large numbers of high-paying jobs, and local people know this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Second, she said, the loss of natural ecosystems endangers the very development plans proposed to replace them.<\/p>\n \u201cRemoving protective mangroves and mudflats will get rid of natural buffers against sea level rise and storms that are increasing under climate change, threatening the development the province says it wants,\u201d McElwee said. \u201cPlanning that incorporates ecosystem protection into some sort of integrated planning could get you both ecosystem protection combined with development, but that kind of integration is very rare in Vietnam.\u201d<\/p>\n The website of Hansen Partnership, an Australian planning and design firm, lists the\u00a0Thai Binh Economic Zone\u00a0Masterplan\u00a0as one of its projects, and says it \u201cwill require a sensitive balance between economic development initiatives, port development, investment and job creation, with the protection and rehabilitation of mangrove forests, sensitive land reclamation and working with local communities.\u201d<\/p>\n Hansen\u2019s Vietnam office didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n The development tension<\/strong><\/p>\n Two in-progress plans elsewhere in the country highlight how frequently development can come into conflict with ecosystem protection, and the often-skewed balance between the two.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, Vietnamese media\u00a0brought attention to\u00a0a plan in Binh Thuan province, on the south-central coast, to clear more than 600 hectares (nearly 1,500 acres) of forest to construct the Ka Pet dam and reservoir, aimed at improving water supply in one of Vietnam\u2019s most drought-prone regions.<\/p>\n Nearly a quarter of this area includes special-use forests in Nui Ong Nature Reserve, a category that\u00a0denotes\u00a0forest \u201cmainly used for nature preservation.\u201d<\/p>\n In an uncommon move, domestic media outlets highlighted how well-preserved this forest is, noting that members of an ethnic minority group living in the area take great pride in the biodiversity and ancient trees.<\/p>\n PanNature\u2019s Nguyen addressed this controversy in a Sept. 7 Facebook post, saying the Ka Pet project stands on firm legal ground.<\/p>\n \u201cThe project has been approved by the National Assembly as an investment policy,\u201d he wrote. \u201cIn principle, this means it has followed the correct procedures for converting land use purposes according to the law.\u201d<\/p>\n A mechanism exists through which the national government can review a previously approved plan for forest management, but this process hasn\u2019t been used and would be a surprising move.<\/p>\n Additionally, officials in Ho Chi Minh City, the country\u2019s economic center, want to\u00a0eliminate\u00a090 hectares (222 acres) of coastal mangrove forests to build a proposed $5.5 billion port, a project city leaders say will create up to 8,000 jobs.<\/p>\n The project is envisioned for Can Gio, a district of the city that includes another UNESCO biosphere reserve thanks to its extensively rehabilitated\u00a0mangrove forest.<\/p>\n Thai Binh\u2019s next steps<\/strong><\/p>\n When it comes to Tien Hai, the backlash has forced provincial officials to pause, at least temporarily.<\/p>\n \u201cThai Binh said that they will review the actual area of the nature reserve but stick to the idea of giving more preference to the golf course and resort project,\u201d Nguyen told Mongabay in an email. \u201cThey actually had to cancel the ground-breaking ceremony in August in order to respond to the public disagreement.\u201d<\/p>\n Nonetheless, the resort project appears likely to win out. Vietnamese media\u00a0reported\u00a0that the provincial government had \u201cclarified\u201d its position in response to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and UNESCO Vietnam, both of which had requested an explanation.<\/p>\n The provincial administration reportedly said the term \u201cnature reserve\u201d as used in the name Tien Hai Nature Reserve is just a label, rather than a legal distinction, and that the reserve\u2019s size is \u201cprimarily qualitative and lack[s] specific measurement-based research\u201d to form a forest development strategy.<\/p>\n The Thai Binh People\u2019s Committee didn\u2019t respond to a list of questions sent by Mongabay.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now in Thai Binh officials are trying to confuse everyone about what counts as a wetland, saying that the previous designation as a wetland reserve wasn\u2019t done correctly or that they are just trying to clarify some land ownership categories, but they just got caught doing land conversion that is top-down and in violation of national regulations on forest conversion,\u201d McElwee said.<\/p>\n While the future of Tien Hai hangs in the balance, conservationists are adamant that the development plans discussed above shouldn\u2019t move forward.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven the fact that Tien Hai is part of a UNESCO-designated biosphere reserve, there are some international obligations that they are putting at risk,\u201d McElwee said. \u201cVietnam also signed on to the 2022 Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework where countries pledged to try to achieve 30% protection of their lands and waters by 2030. Vietnam is already below the global average for protected areas by a lot, and losing some of the nature reserves the country already has is going in the wrong direction.\u201d<\/p>\n Trang Nguyen, founder and executive director of the Vietnamese NGO WildAct, highlighted Tien Hai\u2019s importance to bird populations in particular.<\/p>\n \u201cMigratory birds are under immense pressure from habitat loss, climate change and poaching, and last year our prime minister asked for urgent measures to protect wild and migratory birds in Vietnam,\u201d she said. \u201cIf Thai Binh decides to carry on with their plan, it will be a huge setback to bird conservation not only in Vietnam but globally.\u201d<\/p>\n Nguyen of PanNature, for his part, had a grim assessment of the situation: \u201cThe general trend of protected areas in Vietnam is that after each review, they shrink.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Mangroves](\"https:\/\/www.nature.org.vn\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/2023_tienhai5-1024x629.jpg\")
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