Perhaps it’s time to campaign against Chinese medicine, which seems to drive a lot of animal slaughter.
Vietnam’s Empty Forests
11–20 of 67 posts
Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests
#12It's funny the way things have gone. Vietnam is supposed to be a communist country. The Vietnamese people are some of the greediest nationalities I have ever come across and the government officials and politicians are the greediest.
Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests
#13Vietnam is a stunningly beautiful country but unfortunately a love of nature doesn't seem to have really taken hold there. At least not yet. Missing from all the gorgeous photos of Mekong Delta waterways and pristine beaches is all the trash you'll find strewn in heaps everywhere. My guess is it will take another generation for people there to appreciate how blessed they are to live in such surroundings but by then i…
I travel a lot (work and pleasure) and you see this almost at least in every poorer Asian country; Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Sri Lanka. So much plastic, everywhere. I cannot understand people can live with it. I mean if it's around the corner, maybe you can but people just let it lie in front of their doors. In NL people sweep 3 leaves in the compost heap that is in front of their doors; plastic or other crap is unheard of.
I understand differences, but how can you live in these circumstances; it's not only the very poor, it's also in front or in gardens of villa's in those countries. No-one seems to care. It's a crying shame as all of these have amazing nature contrasted with utter disregard of that nature in many ways.
Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a Viet, born and raised. My country is blessed with incredible scenery, diverse and natural. The coast line is as long as the country itself ffs. Now I won't claim that I'm an avid traveler, but from my limited traveling experience (only been to Australia, Korea, Japan and Hongkong on vacation, nothing too fancy), I have never been to a place that I would rank higher in terms of beautiful, natural scenery. Howeve…
> However, the one thing that always caught me off guard from the few oversea trips that I've taken is that _everything is so clean over there_. That's literally the first thing that I always noticed when I get there and when I came back. Makes me feel sad, envious, and shameful. My wife, who is originally from Indonesia, always notices the same thing in The Netherlands. The contrast couldn't be bigger. She also has…
Yet even in the Netherlands the cleanliness might be a recent thing. I lived in NL some years ago and remember it as the dog-shit-on-the-pavement capital of Western Europe. Only after I left, people tell me, things got stricter.
Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests
#15Vietnam is a stunningly beautiful country but unfortunately a love of nature doesn't seem to have really taken hold there. At least not yet. Missing from all the gorgeous photos of Mekong Delta waterways and pristine beaches is all the trash you'll find strewn in heaps everywhere. My guess is it will take another generation for people there to appreciate how blessed they are to live in such surroundings but by then i…
I'm a Viet, born and raised. My country is blessed with incredible scenery, diverse and natural. The coast line is as long as the country itself ffs. Now I won't claim that I'm an avid traveler, but from my limited traveling experience (only been to Australia, Korea, Japan and Hongkong on vacation, nothing too fancy), I have never been to a place that I would rank higher in terms of beautiful, natural scenery. Howeve…
Western tourist also immediately notice it when they come to SE Asia. It's a pity that this is such a strong memory.
As a Vietnamese local, why do you think the plastic pollution is so widespread here? Sure, everything is packed in plastics, but so is in Japan. Why do people just not think twice about throwing their waste in a ditch or a river or leave their picnic at the beach? Or is most of it coming from the sea? What could change the mentality?
Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a Viet, born and raised. My country is blessed with incredible scenery, diverse and natural. The coast line is as long as the country itself ffs. Now I won't claim that I'm an avid traveler, but from my limited traveling experience (only been to Australia, Korea, Japan and Hongkong on vacation, nothing too fancy), I have never been to a place that I would rank higher in terms of beautiful, natural scenery. Howeve…
> However, the one thing that always caught me off guard from the few oversea trips that I've taken is that _everything is so clean over there_. That's literally the first thing that I always noticed when I get there and when I came back. Makes me feel sad, envious, and shameful. My wife, who is originally from Indonesia, always notices the same thing in The Netherlands. The contrast couldn't be bigger. She also has…
I'm certain they'll get there in time, as part of the development process. Indonesia has grown its economy ten fold in 20 years, a mind-boggling rate of improvement. Just as with China, as they rise they'll have far greater resources available for many other considerations such as preservation of nature and general beautification (which is obviously often expensive, close to a luxury depending on what stage of development you're at). That switch from scarcity to plentifulness, rapidly changes a lot of things in a society usually.
Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a Viet, born and raised. My country is blessed with incredible scenery, diverse and natural. The coast line is as long as the country itself ffs. Now I won't claim that I'm an avid traveler, but from my limited traveling experience (only been to Australia, Korea, Japan and Hongkong on vacation, nothing too fancy), I have never been to a place that I would rank higher in terms of beautiful, natural scenery. Howeve…
Western tourist also immediately notice it when they come to SE Asia. It's a pity that this is such a strong memory. As a Vietnamese local, why do you think the plastic pollution is so widespread here? Sure, everything is packed in plastics, but so is in Japan. Why do people just not think twice about throwing their waste in a ditch or a river or leave their picnic at the beach? Or is most of it coming from the sea?…
As an outsider, If I had to guess it would be lack of proper institutionalized waste management; one that’s not rigorously enforced.
In the West in the early 20th century we also had burning heaps of trash in abandoned or empty lots.
Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests
#18Vietnam is a stunningly beautiful country but unfortunately a love of nature doesn't seem to have really taken hold there. At least not yet. Missing from all the gorgeous photos of Mekong Delta waterways and pristine beaches is all the trash you'll find strewn in heaps everywhere. My guess is it will take another generation for people there to appreciate how blessed they are to live in such surroundings but by then i…
I travel a lot (work and pleasure) and you see this almost at least in every poorer Asian country; Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Sri Lanka. So much plastic, everywhere. I cannot understand people can live with it. I mean if it's around the corner, maybe you can but people just let it lie in front of their doors. In NL people sweep 3 leaves in the compost heap that is in front of their doors; plastic or o…
You most likely only start to care about your surroundings when you exceed a certain income treshold. Below that, you’re just too occupied with bare survival.
Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had a similar impression there too. I think they have a difficult decision to make in terms of balancing raising the quality of life of the people through industrialization and tourism against preserving their natural heritage. Here in the UK, it's easy to chastise Vietnam for not preserving their wildlife when we have nothing left to destroy. We already have a developed economy and we did destroy all the habitats…
> and we did destroy all the habitats in the process. The deforestation of the UK is a lot older than I think many people realise. I used to have a really good link but can’t locate it now, https://treesforlife.org.uk/forest/deforestation/ is a less detailed timeline which looks to convey a similar story. > The peak for Scotland's woodlands was about 5,000 years ago, when tree cover and diversity was at its greatest…
Lead by example is the ideal - you have some homegrown expertise to export too.
Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests
#20Mankind must find a way to curb our population growth and our greed. We are, and have been blind. Not only are we destroying the natural world, we will ultimately destroy ourselves. Let us somehow find a way to limit our population growth and give those that are then born a first rate education so that they are capable of seeing and appreciating the big picture. Knowledge, objectivity - the realization that life on t…
We already are dramatically curbing our population growth. The rate of global population growth has plunged since ~1970. The rate will drop from a peak of about 2% per year in 1970 to 0.2% by ~2060. We've already roughly cut the growth rate in half in 40 some years. By the late 2030s, we should have the rate of growth returned to pre industrialization boom numbers (when the rate began to rapidly increase). It takes time to bring the numbers down, we'll be near population contraction by the time we're into the 2050s.