Ho Chi Minh City, Sept 19:

Vietnam’s ecologically sensitive wetlands, which produce much of the country’s food staples, including rice, fish and fowl, is now beginning to suffer the effects of over-exploitation.

“Environmental protection and economic development sometimes contradict each other,” said deputy minister of Natural Resources and Environment (NRE) Pham Khoi Nguyen Nguyen said recently, spelling out the government’s dilemma. But Ngyuyen indicated that the time had come for drastic measures to be taken to protect a vast region of shimmering paddies and mudflats, stretching from the Red River valley in the north to the Mekong delta in the south, which “plays a crucial role in ensuring the national food supply but is also home to delicate ecosystems”.

“The trend of making quick money by tapping wetland resources in Vietnam is threatening the country’s environment,” Nguyen stressed. One-fifth of Vietnam’s 78 million population makes a living by exploiting 10 million hectares of wetland areas for growing rice and aquaculture.