Vietnam’s Empty Forests • Hacker News Board

Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests

#31

Post by ataturk » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:12 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #17

trickstra wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Don't worry, we'll be back to that pretty soon as the cost of throwing anything away has skyrocketed. I recently (as in, two days ago) had to dispose of a bedroom's worth of carpet and padding. It wasn't much material, but it cost me $56.

Also, for all of you saying "wow our country is dirty" well pick up a fucking mop and get to work!

Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests

#32

Post by thaumasiotes » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:16 PM UTC

leejoramo wrote: post #23

trickstra wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a child growing up in 1970s USA, I remember the vast amount of trash along our roads, city streets, parks and beaches. It was fairly common to see people throw trash out of their car windows. What changed? I have never studied this, but I know we implemented large scale clean up projects, passed new laws and made a cultural shift in attitudes.

What changed was the environmentalism movement, usually symbolized by the crying Indian commercial.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CryingIndian

>>>> 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 it will unfortunately be too late.

This in the parent comment is strange. It wasn't too late everywhere else, and it obviously won't be too late in Vietnam either. A clean environment is a luxury you can afford when you're rich. Poor places are dirty, but it's not like they can't be cleaned.

Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests

#33

Post by 99052882514569 » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:18 PM UTC

tluyben2 wrote: post #13

cageface wrote: post #2

Vietnam 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…

It's not just Asia. Africa and Latin America are much the same. Curiously, Rwanda is a notable exception* - their authoritarian leader decided to spend a lot of manpower to keep everything clean, and I think there are also heavy fines for littering and dumping garbage.

* notable because usually the correlation is with income/culture, but Rwanda is not rich nor much different culturally from neighbouring trash-inundated countries.

Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests

#34

Post by strangegecko » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:24 PM UTC

tluyben2 wrote: post #21

badpun wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree and find that logical, but I saw many villas with expensive western cars in front that had heaps of plastics in front and in the garden. Those people seem to not be struggling with survival but just don't care?

Cultural inertia.

People don't just suddenly change their habits because they have more money. I'm in Taiwan and see rich people live with what seems like poor people habits all the time. Everyone is simply used to it and sees it as normal.

I think attitude changes are more likely a result of education and the opinions and behavior of your peers. Limited contact with other cultures and ideas keeps habits and concepts of normalcy where they are.

Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests

#35

Post by kaybe » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:27 PM UTC

Steve44 wrote: post #9

wdutch wrote: post #5

Earlier 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…

In the case of Europe that would actually lower biodiversity. The land has been cultivated for so long, and mostly with low intensity, that nature has adapted pretty well.

There are many plants and animals living in the hedges, stone walls/hills, grazed fields etc that wouldn't be there otherwise. (And even completely new bioms, like heath land [0].) The land cultivation left plenty of space and weeds for them.

But then, the same was true for the Amazon, which was not the untouched wild forest that the West considered it at all, with millions of people living there and changing the land before contact [1]. One theory is even that the forest is as big as it is due to this history [2].

The relationship of nature and humans over cultures and times is quite interesting and relevant, I think.

In western culture, there is this historical dichotomy (dating back to at least the Greeks if not Mesopotamia), of humans being completely separate from nature, and their civilized, ordered but distructive, maybe even evil character, and the wild and noble wilderness, pristine and innocent, on the other side. (Consider also the views on indigenous populations during the age of colonialism.)

This is not a view held in all cultures, and this plays heavily into this kind of discussion under the surface.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heath#Anthropogenic_heaths

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_rainforest#Human_activi...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta

Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests

#36

Post by LeanderK » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:50 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #16

marapuru wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 develo…

> 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)

I am not sure this is true, isn't it that potential for damage to the enviroment (beyond only simple trash) increases with the economic power of the nation and therefore preservation would have to track economic progress?

I would think that preservation efforts would have track economic progress, but the effects lag in time and therefore gets noticed too late and costly renaturation efforts need to happen.

Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests

#37

Post by leejoramo » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:54 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #32

leejoramo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a child growing up in 1970s USA, I remember the vast amount of trash along our roads, city streets, parks and beaches. It was fairly common to see people throw trash out of their car windows. What changed? I have never studied this, but I know we implemented large scale clean up projects, passed new laws and made a cultural shift in attitudes.

What changed was the environmentalism movement, usually symbolized by the crying Indian commercial. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CryingIndian >>>> 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 it will unfortunately be too late. This in the parent comment is strange. It wasn't too late everywhere else, and it obvi…

Yes, I should have included the rise of the environmental movement. And I came very close to including the crying American Indian ad, it was very impactful on me.

Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests

#38

Post by theandrewbailey » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:58 PM UTC

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #14

marapuru wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> dog-shit-on-the-pavement capital

Oh gosh. The two eternal hazards of my childhood (that my parents would yell at me about) were dog shit and broken glass. I distinctly remember going to a school playground when I was about 6, and wanted to crawl through a plastic tunnel, but didn't when I saw a huge pile of shit in the middle.

Now, pooper scooper laws took care of the former, but people still get drunk off their ass and leave bottles everywhere.

Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests

#39

Post by revskill » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 2:04 PM UTC

Japanese people are taught in schools: We have nothing naturally, so you have to overcome yourself to beat the disadvantages of nature.

Vietnamese people are taught in schools: We have everything naturally, our forests are gold, our beaches are silver. We're proud of it.

Results: Blindly and stupid education is a serious problem in Vietnam. Large percentages of past generation is lazy, not productive.

I don't even mention politics here. A hell.

Shortly, to be successful and rich in Vietnam, you don't need talent or hard-working. You just need relationship.

Who is Ho Chi Minh ? I don't even know if he was Chinese or Vietnamese.

Most of what was told in schools are lie.

Yes, it's a shocking truth: Most of things they taught us in schools are lie. To protect that communist party.

Polices are to protect that party. No bad voice is allowed here.

If you shout out bad things at the party, you'll be caught and get killed silently. Noone knows where you are.

Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests

#40

Post by coconut_crab » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 2:07 PM UTC

trickstra wrote: post #15

baolongtrann wrote: post #3

Earlier 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?…

I can think of a few reasons:

- Convenience & economic: one kg of nylon bag costs around 2$, 20~40 times cheaper than biodegradable plastic, and nylon bag are taxed at more than 100%.

- Local market are full of farmers selling their fresh vegetables, poultry or pork. So when I go buy food for my dinner I come back with 3~5 bags, with each ingredients having their own bag. While a visit to supermarket often result in 1 bag for all of those.

- Average Vietnamese simply wasn't taught how precious nature is. Just 30 years ago we were riding on wood gas truck or cars modded to run on kerosene mixed with gasoline. There is a saying "Prosperity brings respect" (roughly translated) in Vietnam, and we are still poor and too busy to make more money.

- We simply don't have the facility for classifying trash and recycling/burning them.