Hoang Thanh Nga (ELP 2022) | Water Stewardship Program Manager, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Viet Nam
How many people think humans are more powerful than nature?
Whether they change their thoughts after confronting nature's revenge manifested in the form of devastating typhoons like this year’s Typhoon Yagi to China and Viet Nam, and Hurricanes’ Helene and Milton to Florida, United States. No doubt higher ocean temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic fueled tremendous power to these typhoon monsters on their way to land. Torrential rain accumulated from greater ocean evaporation then caused landslides and cracked down deforested barren mountains – angrily sweeping houses, roads and farming crops away to the sea. Are human emissions and deforestation activities turning the ocean and mountains, once being protectors, into enemies?
At WWF, our motto is to create a future where humans live in harmony with Nature. We try to observe and understand natural regimes, status of habitats and species population. Every year, WWF publishes Living Planet Report, largely informing scientific data about the planet's health and more importantly calling for collective actions to restore nature and revive the relationship between humans and nature. Our keystone strategy is Nature-based Solutions (NBS). The European Commission defines NBS as ‘solutions that are inspired and supported by nature, which are cost-effective, simultaneously provide environmental, social and economic benefits and help build resilience’.
WWF-Viet Nam has practiced NBS at a number of conservation programs across our two prioritized landscapes: Central Annamite and Mekong Delta. In Quang Tri province of Central Annamite, to address the issue of deforestation (which was to turn forest land into coffee farming land), the agro-forestry coffee model has successfully proved its feasibility for farmer’s income via distinguished quality Arabica coffee, while restoring forest and ecological corridor along Truong Son range (Slow Forest."Coffee Agroforestry Creates Wildlife Corridor in Vietnam"). Coffee by natural gene is a plant grown under a tropical forest canopy. Some centuries ago, humans took them away from the mother forest and tamed them in intensive monoculture farms. Now the coffee plant is half rewilded into its natural habitat and evident to our hope that there is a way for us to come back to nature’s wisdom.
Photos Below: Coffee is planted under the native forest canopy in Quang Tri, Viet Nam [Photo Credit: @Pun Coffee]
NBS livelihood models are rising in the Mekong Delta, one of top five nutrients most vulnerable to climate change. In the upper Mekong sub-region, WWF Climate Resilience project pilot flood-based livelihood strategies, including a mixed aquaculture model for floating rice and fish farms (Climate Resilient By Nature. "Climate Resilient by Nature Mekong Expansion"). Some three decades ago, in the revolutionary conquest of salty aluminous delta, a dam system was built on a large floodplain to store flood freshwater all year round and turn the farmland from one to three rice crops. This intervention has impeded the natural water and sediment flow and at the same time, accumulated toxic pesticides and fertilizers applying to intensive rice crops. Over years, soil and water have deteriorated in quality, pulling down the crop yields. The project supports farmers to crop floating rice and raise fish in the flooding season, or flood-based farming. The visible impact.
The same NBS strategy is applied for biodiversity conservation at the Tram Chim National Park of Dong Thap province. For years, the park kept water level high within the core zone to protect against wildfires, using dams and culverts. This water management scheme contradicts the seasonal flooded nature of this wetland. Various species of fauna and flora found it harder to search for food and breeding places. Especially, no Sarus Crane, the symbol animal of Mekong, visited the Park since 2021 (Vietnam Plus."Red-crowned cranes return to Tram Chim National Forest"). WWF has worked with park managers to adjust the water regime management, which imitates the natural flood regime to release some water out of the Park in the dry season. Also, controlled burning of grasses and debris at the onset of each dry season helps prevent wildfire and boost the vegetation growth. The result is encouraging, with grassland habitat blossoming in yellow blooming in color. In an unforgettable spring morning 2024, 4 Sarus Cranes were spotted flying and making sounds in the Tram Chim zone.
That moment was heart-touching and rewarding for the nature stewardship people like us. We do not only live in “Peace with Nature”. Instead, we are inspired by many indigenous people who worship nature and practice rituals to the respective deity of their occupation, such as farmers praying to the Water and Soil deity, fisherman to the Sea, and craftsmen to the Forest.
Blog Cover Image: Grassland blossom, awaiting for migratory Sarus Crane in Tram Chim Park, Mekong Delta [Photo Credit: @Binh Dao Quoc / WWF-Viet Nam]