People in the southern province of Kien Giang have directly taken part in climate change prevention for the first time by attending a training programme on how to plant coastal mangrove swamps in Hon Dat district.

This technique is favoured by Sharon Brown, technical advisor to the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ) while talking about the significance of the training programme, which is just one of many important activities being undertaken by the GTZ-funded project to preserve and develop the Kien Giang Biosphere Reserve.

Tu Anh, a local man who has lived in Hon Dat district for many years, said that by 2000, 500 metres of the coastline in the western region of Kien Giang, including the Hon Dat area, had been planted with mangrove trees. As a result, his family’s fruit trees have flourished, bringing in tens of millions of VND and sometimes even up to 100 million USD a year to the area.

However, after the sea dyke was damaged beyond repair due to a change in the currents, as a direct result of climate change, the useful protective undergrowth was swept away by the sea, he said, adding that the people living here could not grow anything as the salinity of the soil was too great.

“Therefore, I immediately accepted GTZ’s invitation to register with its planting project, along with 13 other households,” Anh said.

With assistance from GTZ’s technicians, the seedlings in his nursery have grown well after being planted on strips of coastal land, he added.

Brown said that the techniques GTZ is using in Kien Giang to plant mangrove trees are much more successful than those first applied in Vietnam and this is also the first time that techniques to prevent the sea from swallowing up the coast have being carried out across Vietnam.

After their success in Kien Giang, GTZ will roll out this technique in many other localities nationwide, she added.

According to Nguyen Tan Phong, a GTZ technician, this advanced method of afforestation will help the public to get more involved in planting mangrove forests, which will help to improve the environment as well as increase local people’s incomes./.