Pollution in Vietnam’s rural areas is on the rise, negatively impacting the environment and local inhabitants.

In fact through sales to domestic markets, sales for export and job generation the so-called ‘craft villages’ are a massive part of the country’s overall socio-economic development. But rapid industrial and commercial development in the countryside is coming at a cost: degradation of the environment. There are justifiable and serious concerns over pollution levels and breaches of labour and hygiene safety regulations in the vast majority of these villages.

The most telling statistic is the life expectancy of people dwelling in some villages is five to 10 years shorter than the national average. That’s according to a report made by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE) which surveyed 52 craft villages throughout the country before declaring that 46 per cent were “seriously polluted” while 27 per cent were of “average pollution”.

Dodgy noodles

Phu Do village on the outskirts of Hanoi is a well known supplier of bun (rice noodles) for markets in the capital city. But your average consumer might avoid his local bun cha or bun rieu restaurant on seeing working conditions in Phu Do.

Most noodle makers seem oblivious to simple hygienic practices – employees use their bare hands, the workshops are invariably dusty if not filthy, production facilities are often adjacent to pigsties or toilets.

Pollutants in the waste water are apparently four times higher than permissible limits. Nguyen Thi Van, a local noodle maker, freely admits that all waste water is directly discharged into sewers that run into the Nhue river.

“I have spent nearly all of my life in Phu Do. I got used to the contamination in all the ponds and ditches. But I cannot bear the smell emitting from them all the year round,” says Pham Trong Nghia, who lives next door to Van’s workshop.

Where the dust settles

In Ha Nam province’s Kien Khe village, the air is thick with dust as the main industry is exploitation of rock. The quarries and cement production plants that have sprung up in the last 10 years employ the bulk of the village’s residents. The work has improved living standards in terms of material possessions.

“In 2008, I lived in a one storey house now, I am living in a two storey house,” says 51-year-old Nguyen Tao Nhu, who has been worked in a quarry for eight years. Covered in dust by a crumbling road, his one-year old house is already rather worn looking. All day long trucks carrying cement and rock barrel past his house. Nhu admits the air is “heavily contaminated” and claims he has been suffering respiratory problems for three years.

“Sometimes we cannot breathe,” he says. The MoNRE survey found that more than 50 per cent of Kien Khe’s residents were suffering from illnesses related to water and air pollution. In some villages the pollution of waterways has killed off the local aquaculture.

“We can no longer bathe in ponds or lakes or breed shrimp and fish like we used to in the time before 1995,” says 66-year old Hoang Van Bay, a resident from Bac Ninh province’s Duong O village, which specialises in paper production. “All the village’s ponds and lakes are dark and rank. We cannot bear it.”

“I know that since 2000, the village’s paper volume has doubled to some 40,000 tonnes per year,” he says. According to a survey by the Hanoi-based University of Technology’s Institute for Environmental Science and Technology, 73 per cent of Duong O’s residents are exposed to high levels of coal smoke while 40 per cent of the village’s water sources are contaminated.

In Hanoi’s Duong Noi village, which employs 2,000 people in the textile industry, untreated waste water is directly discharged into Nhue river. In dry season, the water from the river reeks and in rainy season the rice fields are contaminated by the overflowing polluted river water. The MoNRE report also indicated that pollution-related illnesses were rife here with inhabitant complaining of respiratory problems and skin diseases.

Sink or swim

Pham My Le from Hoa Hai “Fine Arts Village” located at the bottom of the Marble Mountains in Quang Nam province claims that 20-25 per cent of sculptors in the locale are hard of hearing. She also admits that acid used to clean the sculptures is later discharged into the local sewage system and has contaminated the area.

While craftspeople seem to freely admit they are damaging the environment, they also claim they have no other choice. In this age of rapid industrialisation and mass commercialisation, the attitude is sink or swim.

“Everyone knows our business is harmful to our health. But it is not easy for us to change jobs,” Le says. “We don’t want to suffer from illnesses but we have to make a living, too.”

Nguyen Thi Tra, the 54-year old owner of a slaughterhouse in Bac Giang province’s Phuc Lam village, feels she is forced to make a living even if it is to the detriment of the environment.

“We cannot quit. I would rather pollute the environment than leave my kids hungry,” says Tra.

Phuc Lam village specialises in the slaughtering of cattle and leather tanning. MoNRE’s Vietnam Environmental Protection Administration cited Phuc Lam’s local health agency as reporting that the village was now home to widespread illnesses and diseases including dysentery and dengue fever.

State investment

So how is this chronic problem being tackled across the country? MoNRE claims that 95 per cent of environmental protection officers in communes and districts are not actually trained in environmental protection. Since 2002, the state has invested just VND550 billion ($29,700) in the environmental protection of craft villages — a sum MoNRE describes as “negligible”.

The MoNRE proposes tackling pollution in craft villages by restructuring and improving production methods by applying advanced technology in waste treatment.

Many localities have established small to medium sized industrial parks to relocate production activities away from residential areas to reduce environmental pollution while helping to develop the local industry. For example, Bac Ninh province has zoned off areas for Phong Khe paper village, Dai Bai bronze casting village and Dong Ky wood products village.

But awareness is also an issue. Vietnam Environmental Protection Administration general director Bui Cach Tuyen claims the public need to know how to protect the environment for the sake of their own health.

“The state should design a plan for craft villages to develop sustainably, including construction of waste treatment systems,” Tuyen says. “Businesses and households in craft villages who seriously pollute the environment must be punished.”

Under the law you can be fined between VND100,000 ($5.4) and VND500 million ($27,000) for polluting the environment. Business will also be forced to halt production until they have cleaned the environment back up. It’s noteworthy that villages and individuals so far have not been held accountable for their actions.

VietNamNet/Timeout

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