ABSTRACT
There can be no doubt that Vietnam’s commitment to modernisation and industrialisation brings with it a serious obligation to environmental protection if sustainable development is to be achieved. In striving to maintain ecological health, Vietnam has to manage not only the many internal processes that may lead to environmental damage but also pressures from outside, regional pollution and resource conflicts, global environmental change and any adverse effects of the process of economic globalisation. Nevertheless, as Tran Thi Thanh Phuong, writing as Deputy Director for Planning and International Relations of the National Environment Agency, Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, has observed, ‘the ongoing reform process [doi moi], together with the fact that Vietnam has a unique opportunity to learn from the experiences of its neighbours, creates a good opportunity for the development and introduction of effective environmental management policies and instruments’ (Tran Thi Thanh Phuong 1996).
