ABSTRACT
Vietnam’s forests were devastated by the American War from 1961-72. An August 1994 report by Hanoi’s Mangrove Ecosystem Research Centre concluded that U.S. chemical defoliation operations destroyed more than one-third of the mangrove forests in Southern Vietnam’s Mekong Delta.1 The poverty during wartime also led to accelerated destruction of the central and northern forests as citizens became desperate for fuelwood and farmland. All told, the war claimed over 2.2 million hectares of forests.2 This defoliation and forest destruction left Vietnam with a host of severe health and environmental problems, including Agent Orange contamination, soil erosion, and loss of animal and fish habitat.
