03/12/2019
On May 22, 2019, in Vân Long Nature Reserve, Vân Long (Gia Viễn District, Ninh Bình Province), the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) cooperated with Ninh Bình Provincial People's Committee to hold a celebration ceremony and activities to respond to the International Day for Biodiversity (IDB) in 2019 with the theme of "Our biodiversity, Our food, Our health” and awarded the Ramsar Certificate of Việt Nam to Vân Long Wetland Nature Reserve (WNR). Attending the Ceremony were the Deputy Minister of MONRE Võ Tuấn Nhân, the Vice Chairman of Ninh Bình Provincial People's Committee Phạm Quang Ngọc, the representatives of the departments, branches and numerous armed forces, students and people of Ninh Bình Province.
Deputy Minister Võ Tuấn Nhân delivered the opening speech to celebrate the ceremony
Speaking at the ceremony, Deputy Minister Võ Tuấn Nhân emphasized that the theme of this year's IDB aims to promote understanding of knowledge and strengthen communication on the relationship between food, nutrition and human health with biodiversity, contributing to the implementation of sustainable development goals, including mitigation of and adapting to climate change, restoring ecosystems, cleaning up water sources and poverty reduction. At the same time, he also honored the nature diversity and abundance provided to people as a foundation for human existence and development on Earth.
Việt Nam is a country blessed with the abundance and diversity of ecosystems and species and genetic resources. The survey results show that 10% of the world's mammal, bird and fish species are found in Việt Nam and more than 40% of endemic plant species are not found anywhere other than Việt Nam. As a country with high biodiversity, Việt Nam is also facing the risk of biodiversity degradation and a strong loss of ecological balance, which directly affects human living environment, threatening the Earth’s sustainable development. Therefore, the biodiversity conservation needs a multi-stakeholder cooperation and strong participation of the whole society to be able to achieve the objectives of the Convention on Biodiversity, as well as the objectives of the National Strategy on Biodiversity.
Deputy Minister Võ Tuấn Nhân awarded the Ramsar Recognition Certificate to Vân Long Wetland Nature Reserve
to the Vice Chairman of Ninh Bình Provincial People's Committee Phạm Quang Ngọc
In response to the IDB 2019, Deputy Minister Võ Tuấn Nhân requested the Ministries, branches, and localities to promote communication activities to raise awareness for officials and communities, especially young people on the role of biodiversity in providing food and nutrition, ensuring human health and socio-economic development; To propagate the implementation of legal provisions on biodiversity conservation, focusing on the conservation and development of livestock and plant varieties; To launch local biodiversity conservation movements, to rationally and economically use natural resources, to implement green and environmentally friendly consumption, not to trade and use endangered and rare animal and plant species, to give priority to protection; To implement models of biodiversity conservation and sustainable use in combination with hunger elimination, poverty alleviation and new rural construction, to carry out rearing and planting activities in combination with sustainable use of species, especially in agriculture, forestry, fishery, pharmaceutical and processing industries.
Also in the framework of the ceremony, Deputy Minister Võ Tuấn Nhân awarded the Ramsar Recognition Certificate to Vân Long WNR for Ninh Bình Province. Vân Long WNR was awarded a certificate of recognition by the Ramsar Secretariat as the Ramsar site No. 2360 of the world (the 9th Ramsar Site of Việt Nam) at the 13th Ramsar Convention Conference in Dubai City, the United Arab Emirates. This is an intact inland wetland remaining in the Red River Delta, including shallow rivers and lakes and rich submerged vegetation, bearing specific ecological characteristics, which creates a unique natural landscape for the reserve. The area is surrounded by a very famous limestone system with a beautiful cave system and typical vegetation for limestone mountain ecosystem (karst), which is the main habitat of the Delacour langur (Trachypithecus delacouri), one of the primate species threatened of extinction at the global level and only living in Việt Nam. This area has two natural records of Việt Nam as "Việt Nam's largest langur reserve" and "the largest natural picture area in Việt Nam - the cat-scratching mountain picture”.
Numerous armed forces, students and people of Ninh Bình Province attended the ceremony
On this occasion, the leaders of Ninh Bình Province and Gia Viễn District have committed to continue to conserve, rationally extract and use the values of Vân Long WNR for it to live up as the 9th Ramsar Site of Việt Nam. At the same time, to call on every agency, organization, household and individual in the province to participate in biodiversity conservation and environmental protection through practical actions for a sustainable socio-economic development.
Also in the framework of activities responding to the IDB, the Vietnam Environment Administration has cooperated with the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha, the Ninh Bình Province’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment to organize a conference on the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha with biodiversity conservation.
At the conference, the delegates have exchanged and discussed contents such as analyzing and clarifying the current situation and challenges for nature and biodiversity conservation; assessing the achievements of the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha and the coordination with local authorities at all levels in the nature and biodiversity conservation in the past time; at the same time, proposing feasible solutions, good models and specific activities to enhance the cohesion and promote the role of the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha on the nature and biodiversity conservation and the environmental protection in the coming time.
Nguyễn Hằng
(Source: Vietnam Environment Administration Magazine, English Edition II - 2019)
