Int’l pundits discuss Mekong environmental issues in HCMC
VIET TOAN
Over 300 experts from 20 countries are discussing environmental issues in the Mekong River Basin at a conference that opened Tuesday in Ho Chi Minh City.
About 200 reports are expected to be presented at the Mekong Environmental Symposium, whose focus is on environmental and socio-economic effects of the expansion of hydropower plants’ capacity, land use in forestry, climate change, and the urbanization of rural regions.
The event, which closes tomorrow, is intended to establish scientific bases and put forward research and development assignments to help riparian governments make sensible environment-related decisions and mitigate negative impacts on the Mekong River.
Scientists will also offer solutions to environmental problems and opportunities for transnational cooperation in research and education.
An 800,000 square kilometer area makes the Mekong River Basin one of the world’s largest trans-border river catchments.
Sixty-three percent of its 70 million inhabitants make a living on agriculture and contribute 22.6 percent of the riparian countries’ GDP, according to statistics announced at the conference.
The area is also a biodiversity hotspot for many species, especially fish, and characterized by large-scale fish migrations, says a report by a group of experts from the U.S.’s Princeton University, international nonprofit WorldFish Center, and Cambodia’s Fisheries Administration.
Over one million tonnes of freshwater fish are caught in the Cambodian and Vietnamese floodplains every year, it notes.
Both fish production and species richness are now threatened by imminent construction of hydropower plants on tributaries as well as on the Mekong River itself, the experts add.
The river flows for over 4,800 km through six countries – namely China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
Below are a few photos taken at the symposium today:
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