In recent years, climate change has been developing in a complicated manner in many countries. This has raised an alert for the living environment and the issue of exploitation and preservation of natural resources. In particular, maintaining the balance of the ecosystem and biodiversity is one of the urgent requirements today.
A warning
With the rapid development of science and technology, humans have been proving that we no longer depend much on nature. However, according to intensive researches on the global environment and climate, our living environment is being mercilessly destroyed by humans. Climate change is the result of decades of exploitation, overexploitation of natural resources and habitats. This seriously affects biodiversity for both flora and fauna, leading to changes in the quality and quantity of environmental factors, making them more negative and harsh every day.
The clearest evidence is rising tides in Dong Nai and Saigon river basins in recent years, causing many residential areas and economic production areas on riverbanks be flooded many times from local to large scale. Although local administrations have carried out some solutions to prevent flooding in residential and production areas along the rivers, economic losses are unavoidable. In the province alone, the high tide over the dyke level in the area along Saigon River has affected many areas of Thuan An City, Thu Dau Mot City. Specifically, according to provincial Irrigation Office the tidal range of Saigon River has reached 1.74m, higher than the elevation of dyke surface built in the 1990s (1.70m), causing many areas to be flooded during high tides.
A joint effort is in need
With the aim to maintain a safe and healthy living environment, many messages to raise public awareness of biodiversity have been sent out by many organizations and countries. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment also sent an official dispatch to ministries, sectors, localities, businesses and people to actively organize activities in response to Action Month for the environment in response to International Day of Biodiversity and Environment Day 2021. In this official dispatch, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment suggested that ministries, sectors, localities and businesses seriously, actively communicate, disseminate messages on the protection and preservation of the living environment among all officials and people.
The environmental branch needs to particularly emphasizes the importance of ecological balance and biodiversity in habitats. Accordingly, each ministry, local administration, and business needs to set specific goals to preserve the living environment with the spirit of "people to live in harmony with nature, to apply nature-based solutions into global issues of climate, food and water security, sustainable livelihoods for people”.
Responding to the calling of Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and dispatch of Provincial People's Committee on preserving living environment and ensuring biodiversity in natural environment in the province, provincial Department of Natural Resources and Environment assigned Environmental Protection Office to carry out practical activities, such as to collaborate with other departments and localities to propagate and raise people’s awareness of protecting the living environment. The provincial environmental branch also coordinated with functional forces to conduct many patrols, surveys, and penalized many organizations and individuals who commit acts of infringement and harm the natural environment.
Along with strictly implementing the preservation and protection of the environment, Binh Duong also actively carried out extensive popularization among the people to raising the spirit of protecting and preserving natural resources and environment. In particular, the province paid special attention to areas such as protection forests, ecological development zones, forestry green areas...
To contribute to limiting the negative effects of climate change on people's lives, production and business, Binh Duong approved an investment project to upgrade and build many irrigation works along the Saigon River. Accordingly, provincial leaders assigned Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to survey and offer advices on the execution of irrigation projects such as dikes, embankments, tidal sluices in estuary areas... On the other hand, the province also directed Department of Natural Resources and Environment to seriously propagate and raise people’s awareness of preserving and protecting the environment and maintaining biodiversity in the area.
Reported by Dinh Thang – Translated by Ngoc Huynh
