Related news Workshop discuses environmental protection measures for Mekong Delta First Vietnamese honored with world’s top environment prize

The event was attended by Tu Minh Hai, Vice Chairman of the provincial People’s Council; representatives of the provincial Fatherland Front’s Committee, the provincial Party Committee’s Board of Propaganda and Public Security force; Lai Thanh Son, Vice Permanent Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee as well as leaders of several relevant departments and sectors.

Bui Van Hanh, Vice Permanent Chairman of the Bac Giang provincial People’s Council chairs the supervision at the provincial People’s Committee.

After listening to the report and actually supervising at the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, Management Board of the provincial Industrial Parks, 8 districts, city, communes and enterprises in the province, the delegates specified the positive changes and some achievements in the local EP task recently. The environmental quality has been improved considerably while due attention has been paid to the waste collection, transport and treatment.

However, several shortcomings still exist among the EP efforts, particularly the authorities in many communes and towns are not fully aware of their responsibility in executing EP tasks; it is hard to collect and treat the waste due to poor classification of waste in the localities or to collect the fee of waste collection, transport and treatment under the Decision No.43 of provincial People’s Committee.

Besides, several enterprises in the industrial parks and clusters have yet to strictly follow the EP regulations. The province has 49 projects who owners have not prepared the document to request affirming the completion of EP project as regulation in spite of passing the expired date meanwhile 21 industrial clusters have not built concentrated systems of waste and water collection and treatment.

Additionally, the concentrated system of wastewater treatment in Dinh Tram Industrial Park did not meet the A standard before discharging to the environment that contaminated T6 canal and there was a shortage of a concentrated wastewater collection system in Bac Giang city.

Addressing at the supervision, Vice Chairman Bui Van Hanh urged the provincial People’s Committee to continue instructing the competent sectors, districts and city to enhance the communicating and training the EP law to the staff in charge in the communal level.

Also, the provincial authority should consider making a comprehensive plan of inspecting and checking the violation. Particularly, the “post-inspection” task should be well fulfilled to timely correct the violated cases after inspecting and checking the organizations and individuals, especially those have yet to complete the document to affirm the completion of EP task with an expired date and the operated enterprises have yet to make the Environmental Impact Assessment Report.

Moreover, further solutions should be applied to seriously control the approval for the investment that means only investment projects with completed environment procedures are accepted. It is prohibited to exchange the environment for the economy.

Promoting environmental auditing

As the host country of the 14th Assembly of the Asian Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (ASOSAI 14), the State Audit Office of Vietnam (SAV) proposed the congress theme of “Environmental Audit for Sustainable Development” and received a high consensus from all of the 46 members. It is quite justifiable as the environmental issue is currently the number one global challenge, requiring the joint efforts of all nations.

 

Tourism sector promotes environmental protection

Vietnam’s tourism sector is making efforts to go green and spread awareness via community-based campaigns.

 

Minh Linh