SAVE THE EARTH

In recent decades, apart from basic problems, for example, preventing atomic warfare,
preserving peace, declining population growth rate, environmental protection has
become a globally big issue, has been of vital importance for humanity on Earth.
Environmental saving is a heated global problem that the entire world community is
working together to improve the situation. The ozone layer depression increases the
risk of skin cancer, eye diseases and could reduce human immune ability. Animals,
plants are also affected and some species are destroyed or are on the brink of
extinction.
The ecological crisis in the world is going on at a serious level, natural resources have
been exhausting rapidly. Environmental pollution is increasingly spreading and
becoming a threat to human existence.
In the last 5 years, environmental issues have been more focused than before.
However, in reality, the percentage of toxic emissions in the atmosphere continues to
climb; the rate of damaged forests is at an alarming level; a third of the world’s
population still lacks water; unless there are new solutions to manage groundwater
sources, in 2025 the world will fall into a water crisis; seafood is overexploited and
declining; desertification is still at crisis levels in Africa.
Causes of environmental degradation are rapid industrial development, increasingly
serious deforestation on a global range, imbalance between resources and population,
raising arms race condition.
Environmental pollution and degradation occurred in any country, any area, from slow
development countries to advanced industrial countries. Polluted contamination does
not limit within national borders; deforestation in one country might lead to flood,
drought in another. This is a global problem, so no single country can solve it on its
own, there needs to be general coordination through a global strategy.
Viet Nam is also facing serious challenges with the ecological environment. Land,
forests, water, animals, and plants are overexploited, causing rare resources to become
increasingly exhausted. In the present area of recessionary land, bare hills in our
country have reached 13 million hectares (39% of the area), of which 1.2 million
hectares have lost the ability to be cultivated.
In the past 50 years, forest area has decreased by 6 million hectares, a coverage rate
has been 26%. Currently, in some industrial areas, the concentration of dust and
poisonous gas has exceeded allowable levels many times because most factories still
use backward technology, old equipment.
Faced with that situation, the Vietnamese Party and Government have taken positive
action to protect the ecological environment, ensure a healthy life for citizens.
Vietnam needs to learn lessons from industrialized countries and must have a backup
plan, limit pollution in the future. The mineral exploitation needs to be organized and
managed well in order to avoid waste resources and negative impacts on
environmental resources.
Therefore, it is necessary to build a system of legal documents as a basis for enforcing
standards on discharge, controlling contamination and handling violations. While
planning urban areas, proper attention needs to be paid to the arrangement of factories,
residential clusters, entertainment areas, areas planted with green trees, drainage
systems, solid waste dumps, waste treatment plants and toxic waste incinerators, etc.
Environmental protection is the general concern of individuals, every family, every
country and also humanity, with a sense of responsibility: saving the Earth, saving our
cradle.
(From: Summary of Nhan Dan newspaper, New Hanoi, New World)