Think Global, Act Global in the Mekong Delta? Environmental Change, Civil Society, and NGOs

Abstract

The Mekong delta is experiencing rapid growth in foreign investment and trade, urban development, industry, agriculture, and fisheries. With these come externalities of river-flow interruptions, habitat destruction, and pollution interacting with climate change to weaken environmental services. Results can present unprecedented livelihood challenges to communities in one of the most environmentally vulnerable areas of Vietnam. Overcoming the increasing stress and its consequences requires new skills, a forward-looking governance framework, and engagement of millions of delta households. Questions therefore arise about how to address the magnitude and geographic scale of such challenges by developing appropriate institutional and human resources how and to ascertain society’s proper role in this process. Civil-society studies have mostly examined the political and societal context of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Vietnam, but NGO initiatives in environmental restoration are at an early stage and less frequently studied. Defining the urgent environmental pressures on the Mekong delta, especially in aquatic systems, this chapter outlines the need for an expanded vision in identifying solutions and widening society’s contributions. This chapter also details the institutional constraints to society and NGO action. The chapter argues that more visible global engagement in restoration and management is needed given Vietnam’s position as an emerging, natural resource-dependent society and its increasingly ­international-linked delta economy.