Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Vietnam’s Empty Forests

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 67 posts

Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests

#51

Post by goda90 »

baolongtrann wrote: post #3
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'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…

How big is social media there? The #trashtag trend is really awesome, and would be good to get going. It's using people's desire for attention to do some clean up.

Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests

#52

Post by empath75 »

99052882514569 wrote: post #33
tluyben2 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-inundat…

Costa Rica is also a notable exception. People there are obsessed with keeping stuff clean and protecting wildlife, because I think they understand how much their livelihood depends on tourism. It’s a huge difference between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, even though culturally the countries are very similar otherwise.

Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests

#53

Post by empath75 »

ivanhoe wrote: post #4
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…

You can find that in pretty much any underdeveloped area in the world. Not sure what exactly is the socio-psychological explanation for that, but poor societies usually just don't have interest/time/energy to take care about nature or even their surroundings when they have to work hard to survive.

The police and governments are often corrupt or non functional so effectively enforcing anything like litter laws is almost a nonsensical concept. A lot of these places can barely enforce laws of any kind.

Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests

#54

Post by wang_li »

badpun wrote: post #18
tluyben2 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is just using being "poor" to make excuses for bad behaviors. It's such a common occurrence in the West that people don't even think whether it is valid or not. It doesn't take copious amounts of money to not litter. It's an attitude. When I visited Vietnam my local friends kept their homes spotless, but when we were in hotels they would literally drop trash on the floor of the room even though there was a waste basket less than a meter away.Poor people don't need to litter to survive and prosper. Good waste management/sanitation habits improves lives in plenty of ways and it doesn't require wealth do to it.. It's attitudinal, not a matter of survival.

Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests

#55

Post by gordo4 »

empath75 wrote: post #52
99052882514569 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-inundat…

Costa Rica is also a notable exception. People there are obsessed with keeping stuff clean and protecting wildlife, because I think they understand how much their livelihood depends on tourism. It’s a huge difference between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, even though culturally the countries are very similar otherwise.

They burn trash and toilet paper in the ditch beside the road in Guanacaste. To be fair, the roads aren't paved, and there are no gas stations or infrastructure. Yes, ecotourism is big in Costa Rica, but they aren't perfect either. Maybe only in the touristy areas....

Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests

#56

Post by emj »

99052882514569 wrote: post #33
tluyben2 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-inundat…

Mandela wrote about this back in 1994 https://books.google.se/books?id=_ewvL93kFx4C&printsec=front...

But that is South Africa, not really a poor African nation.

Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests

#57

Post by liveoneggs »

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…

it can all start with you. Tell someone.

Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests

#58

Post by c22 »

wang_li wrote: post #54
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.

This is just using being "poor" to make excuses for bad behaviors. It's such a common occurrence in the West that people don't even think whether it is valid or not. It doesn't take copious amounts of money to not litter. It's an attitude. When I visited Vietnam my local friends kept their homes spotless, but when we were in hotels they would literally drop trash on the floor of the room even though there was a waste…

You have to be able to afford to buy trash bags if you want to keep your trash from being in "a pile" and then what do you do with all these bags of trash? If your whole community is too poor to afford a garbage truck then who is coming 'round to pick up the garbage? Of course poor people in underserved communities could just haul their own trash to the "local pile", but who has time to do that when you're working to get food on the table?

Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests

#59

Post by yellowapple »

teekert wrote: post #41
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…

Yes, it's a pity, I traveled to Quan Lan Island in 2010, my wife and I thought it would be unspoiled and off track. But the boat there was full of people throwing litter over board, I even saw a lady pull a diaper of a child and throw it overboard without even thinking. The beaches were littered with colorful plastic. (I have a picture on my Nextcloud but no idea how to share it and my wife is very prominent in so I…

> Birds choke on your chewing gum!

This is the first I've heard of this one. It sounds reasonable, but something tells me your school was using this as an excuse to keep kids from sticking their gum all over the place ;)

Re: Vietnam’s Empty Forests

#60

Post by wang_li »

c22 wrote: post #58
wang_li wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just using being "poor" to make excuses for bad behaviors. It's such a common occurrence in the West that people don't even think whether it is valid or not. It doesn't take copious amounts of money to not litter. It's an attitude. When I visited Vietnam my local friends kept their homes spotless, but when we were in hotels they would literally drop trash on the floor of the room even though there was a waste…

You have to be able to afford to buy trash bags if you want to keep your trash from being in "a pile" and then what do you do with all these bags of trash? If your whole community is too poor to afford a garbage truck then who is coming 'round to pick up the garbage? Of course poor people in underserved communities could just haul their own trash to the "local pile", but who has time to do that when you're working to…

Your post to me is quite strange because it describes a problem that has a certain floor on poverty, but then claims those being spoken about live below that floor. If you have plastic bottles, cans, and etc. you are not so poor as to be unable to manage your waste. The hyper impoverished people you describe, subsistence farmers, have compost, not non-biodegradable and unburnable waste.
Post reply on HN