9 ms·

Vietnam’s Empty Forests

80 points by mykowebhn 8y ago

cageface 8y ago
Vietnam is a stunningly beautiful country but unfortunately a love of nature doesn't seem to have really taken hold there. At least not yet. Missing from all the gorgeous photos of Mekong Delta waterways and pristine beaches is all the trash you'll find strewn in heaps everywhere. My guess is it will take another generation for people there to appreciate how blessed they are to live in such surroundings but by then it will unfortunately be too late. To some extent this is just the inevitable consequence of a small but populous country hurtling into modernity but there are also some important cultural attitudes that need to change.
- baolongtrann 8y ago
  I'm a Viet, born and raised. My country is blessed with incredible scenery, diverse and natural. The coast line is as long as the country itself ffs. Now I won't claim that I'm an avid traveler, but from my limited traveling experience (only been to Australia, Korea, Japan and Hongkong on vacation, nothing too fancy), I have never been to a place that I would rank higher in terms of beautiful, natural scenery. However, the one thing that always caught me off guard from the few oversea trips that I've taken is that _everything is so clean over there_. That's literally the first thing that I always noticed when I get there and when I came back. Makes me feel sad, envious, and shameful.
  - marapuru 8y ago
    > However, the one thing that always caught me off guard from the few oversea trips that I've taken is that _everything is so clean over there_. That's literally the first thing that I always noticed when I get there and when I came back. Makes me feel sad, envious, and shameful. My wife, who is originally from Indonesia, always notices the same thing in The Netherlands. The contrast couldn't be bigger. She also has these feelings of sadness and shame.
    - Mediterraneo10 8y ago
      Yet even in the Netherlands the cleanliness might be a recent thing. I lived in NL some years ago and remember it as the dog-shit-on-the-pavement capital of Western Europe. Only after I left, people tell me, things got stricter.
      - theandrewbailey 8y ago
        > dog-shit-on-the-pavement capital Oh gosh. The two eternal hazards of my childhood (that my parents would yell at me about) were dog shit and broken glass. I distinctly remember going to a school playground when I was about 6, and wanted to crawl through a plastic tunnel, but didn't when I saw a huge pile of shit in the middle. Now, pooper scooper laws took care of the former, but people still get drunk off their ass and leave bottles everywhere.
    - adventured 8y ago
      I'm certain they'll get there in time, as part of the development process. Indonesia has grown its economy ten fold in 20 years, a mind-boggling rate of improvement. Just as with China, as they rise they'll have far greater resources available for many other considerations such as preservation of nature and general beautification (which is obviously often expensive, close to a luxury depending on what stage of development you're at). That switch from scarcity to plentifulness, rapidly changes a lot of things in a society usually.
      - LeanderK 8y ago
        > resources available for many other considerations such as preservation of nature and general beautification (which is obviously often expensive, close to a luxury depending on what stage of development you're at) I am not sure this is true, isn't it that potential for damage to the enviroment (beyond only simple trash) increases with the economic power of the nation and therefore preservation would have to track economic progress? I would think that preservation efforts would have track economic progress, but the effects lag in time and therefore gets noticed too late and costly renaturation efforts need to happen.
  - trickstra 8y ago
    Western tourist also immediately notice it when they come to SE Asia. It's a pity that this is such a strong memory. As a Vietnamese local, why do you think the plastic pollution is so widespread here? Sure, everything is packed in plastics, but so is in Japan. Why do people just not think twice about throwing their waste in a ditch or a river or leave their picnic at the beach? Or is most of it coming from the sea? What could change the mentality?
    - mc32 8y ago
      As an outsider, If I had to guess it would be lack of proper institutionalized waste management; one that’s not rigorously enforced. In the West in the early 20th century we also had burning heaps of trash in abandoned or empty lots.
      - ataturk 8y ago
        Don't worry, we'll be back to that pretty soon as the cost of throwing anything away has skyrocketed. I recently (as in, two days ago) had to dispose of a bedroom's worth of carpet and padding. It wasn't much material, but it cost me $56. Also, for all of you saying "wow our country is dirty" well pick up a fucking mop and get to work!
    - leejoramo 8y ago
      As a child growing up in 1970s USA, I remember the vast amount of trash along our roads, city streets, parks and beaches. It was fairly common to see people throw trash out of their car windows. What changed? I have never studied this, but I know we implemented large scale clean up projects, passed new laws and made a cultural shift in attitudes.
      - stefanfisk 8y ago
        I also remember Sweden being like this until early/mid 90s. The only real change AFAIK was peoples' attitudes, as a result of government campaigns. Hell, in the 60s you could watch wonderfully informational movies as this on the one and only available TV station https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrcrX9Qaw2o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrcrX9Qaw2o. (skip to 1:15 for the recommended practise of waste removal near the ocean).
  - teekert 8y ago
    Yes, it's a pity, I traveled to Quan Lan Island in 2010, my wife and I thought it would be unspoiled and off track. But the boat there was full of people throwing litter over board, I even saw a lady pull a diaper of a child and throw it overboard without even thinking. The beaches were littered with colorful plastic. (I have a picture on my Nextcloud but no idea how to share it and my wife is very prominent in so I won't but the picture still make me feel sad. Edit, uploaded but only downloadable for 7 days or 100 times apparently (and cropped my wife out): [0]) I also got the feeling that small bays that were labelled as nice in our perhaps a bit dated travel guide were filled with large hotels between the time since they were labeled as such and when we arrived. Overall though I found Vietnam very, very beautiful indeed and the people were very kind as well (outside the tourist industry at least). I guess it's an education thing, as kid I constantly heard in school: Plastic stays around for 2500 years! Birds choke on your chewing gum! The hole in the ozone layer is our fault! TBH I felt pretty burdened, sad and responsible by/for it, but I guess it has its advantages. [0] https://send.firefox.com/download/c48c1add8b2d74a0/#qxQ-qoh-iMvZJoJY_Bt_gQ https://send.firefox.com/download/c48c1add8b2d74a0/#qxQ-qoh-...
    - yellowapple 8y ago
      > Birds choke on your chewing gum! This is the first I've heard of this one. It sounds reasonable, but something tells me your school was using this as an excuse to keep kids from sticking their gum all over the place ;)
  - goda90 8y ago
    How big is social media there? The #trashtag trend is really awesome, and would be good to get going. It's using people's desire for attention to do some clean up.
    - baolongtrann 8y ago
      Social media, mainly facebook, is absolutely huge over here. I have seen a few popular local #trashtag pictures circling around. We generally catch up with internet trends pretty quickly. I wouldn't be surprised if it made national TV. It's awesome but unfortunately I don't think it would help much in the long run.
  - gaongthothuy 8y ago
    As an American-born Vietnamese person, I'll provide context for other Western readers: There is no real US substitute I can think of for experiencing living in Vietnam. I grew up in NoVA, and would go on month-long summer trips to Vietnam with my family to visit relatives. My asian friends from China, India, and the Philippines would go on similar trips with their families too, so we would share stories and commiserate with each other. We joked with the Korean kids how they had it easy, and would tell the White kids how it's like the opposite of 'vacation'. Living outside Hanoi with my relatives and seeing day-to-day life in Vietnam made me thankful for my Western lifestyle. I was used to the typical US suburban cushiness, and this was like bootcamp: no A/C, no American toilets (only squat ones), less reliable internet, widely varying food standards (having diarrhea in Florida-like weather is awful), and commonplace dirtiness and pollution (imagine NYC before the EPA but more widespread). Even for me, there would be moments of culture shock seeing street food vendors selling field rats or shop owners dumping loose garbage into alleys. Things you would be shocked to see happen in the US without immediate reprimand and regulation are "just a part of life" in Vietnam. There is a huge cultural disconnect to hurdle between practices that are acceptable in Vietnam vs. the US. Finally, there is the topic of education. For those asians who came from rural lifestyles not very long ago, education was not widely accessible or particularly advanced (e.g. college-level subject study), thus, many people did not grow up receiving the same learnings. This is where folk beliefs come in and fill the void (i.e. the "old wives tale" equivalent). It's information based on tertiary cause-effect understanding, or explanation derived from non-scientific study. For example, a handful of my older relatives believe that rains causes lice (as in lice spontaneously generate from rain), therefore, keeping your head dry in the rain prevents lice. This is something that could be easily discredited if there was effort put into convincing them otherwise or letting them discover it's not true. It's really an incredible shame that ignorance, unawareness, and fallaciousness have lead to such a tragedy of animals and environments being destroyed. Vietnam needs more figures to go out into the public and address ass-backwards thinking like drinking bile or eating horns will cure ailments. It's certainly as dumb or dumber than anti-vax stories. Modern medicine is already a solution to many of these "folk cures", with greater efficacy and less harm, yet it's ignored in favor of some random concoction because that's the "traditional way". It makes as much sense as hanging herbs in my doorway to ward off the flu over getting a flu shot.
- ivanhoe 8y ago
  You can find that in pretty much any underdeveloped area in the world. Not sure what exactly is the socio-psychological explanation for that, but poor societies usually just don't have interest/time/energy to take care about nature or even their surroundings when they have to work hard to survive.
  - empath75 8y ago
    The police and governments are often corrupt or non functional so effectively enforcing anything like litter laws is almost a nonsensical concept. A lot of these places can barely enforce laws of any kind.
- wdutch 8y ago
  I had a similar impression there too. I think they have a difficult decision to make in terms of balancing raising the quality of life of the people through industrialization and tourism against preserving their natural heritage. Here in the UK, it's easy to chastise Vietnam for not preserving their wildlife when we have nothing left to destroy. We already have a developed economy and we did destroy all the habitats in the process. I don't think there is an easy answer for Vietnam and other places in a similar situation such as Borneo. I just hope the next generation have some natural beauty left in the world.
  - cageface 8y ago
    This is definitely an important part of it but corruption, misplaced faith in folk medicines, and a desire to show off new wealth also play a big role.
  - arethuza 8y ago
    The "Empty Forests" in the title made me think of the "deer forests" of the Scottish Highlands which generally have almost no trees! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer_forest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer_forest
  - Steve44 8y ago
    > and we did destroy all the habitats in the process. The deforestation of the UK is a lot older than I think many people realise. I used to have a really good link but can’t locate it now, https://treesforlife.org.uk/forest/deforestation/ https://treesforlife.org.uk/forest/deforestation/ is a less detailed timeline which looks to convey a similar story. > The peak for Scotland's woodlands was about 5,000 years ago, when tree cover and diversity was at its greatest extent. > "natural changes in climate, and around 4,500 years ago" and "The treeline became lower" > By the time the Romans arrived, over half of our native forests had been lost > By the 18th century, woodland cover reached its all time low I’m not sure how I feel about lambasting other countries for deforestation after we’ve done ours. Perhaps we should offer to return ours to its natural state to set a good example……..
    - stuaxo 8y ago
- tluyben2 8y ago
  I travel a lot (work and pleasure) and you see this almost at least in every poorer Asian country; Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Sri Lanka. So much plastic, everywhere. I cannot understand people can live with it. I mean if it's around the corner, maybe you can but people just let it lie in front of their doors. In NL people sweep 3 leaves in the compost heap that is in front of their doors; plastic or other crap is unheard of. I understand differences, but how can you live in these circumstances; it's not only the very poor, it's also in front or in gardens of villa's in those countries. No-one seems to care. It's a crying shame as all of these have amazing nature contrasted with utter disregard of that nature in many ways.
  - badpun 8y ago
    You most likely only start to care about your surroundings when you exceed a certain income treshold. Below that, you’re just too occupied with bare survival.
    - tluyben2 8y ago
      I agree and find that logical, but I saw many villas with expensive western cars in front that had heaps of plastics in front and in the garden. Those people seem to not be struggling with survival but just don't care?
      - strangegecko 8y ago
        Cultural inertia. People don't just suddenly change their habits because they have more money. I'm in Taiwan and see rich people live with what seems like poor people habits all the time. Everyone is simply used to it and sees it as normal. I think attitude changes are more likely a result of education and the opinions and behavior of your peers. Limited contact with other cultures and ideas keeps habits and concepts of normalcy where they are.
      - senorjazz 8y ago
        I've noticed rich people in poor countries are very aware of what is not becoming of them. They were probably waiting for some poor person to come work for a few dollars a day to come do the jobs beneath them. I've seen it with the wife's family (middle class South American). They are used to my strange ways now, but they were shocked when they saw me washing the car, doing the gardening, tidying the yard, "why are you doing that, you have money, just pay someone".
- liveoneggs 8y ago
  it can all start with you. Tell someone.
Halluxfboy009 8y ago
Mankind must find a way to curb our population growth and our greed. We are, and have been blind. Not only are we destroying the natural world, we will ultimately destroy ourselves. Let us somehow find a way to limit our population growth and give those that are then born a first rate education so that they are capable of seeing and appreciating the big picture. Knowledge, objectivity - the realization that life on this planet is precious and rare and, irreplaceable.
- adventured 8y ago
  We already are dramatically curbing our population growth. The rate of global population growth has plunged since ~1970. The rate will drop from a peak of about 2% per year in 1970 to 0.2% by ~2060. We've already roughly cut the growth rate in half in 40 some years. By the late 2030s, we should have the rate of growth returned to pre industrialization boom numbers (when the rate began to rapidly increase). It takes time to bring the numbers down, we'll be near population contraction by the time we're into the 2050s.
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    The metric that matters is resources consumed per person. If people's goals are to achieve consumption levels similar to upper middle class in USA or Europe, then it doesn't matter if the total population growth is slowing down, or even contracting, as resource consumption will still very much be exploding.
Spooky23 8y ago
Perhaps it’s time to campaign against Chinese medicine, which seems to drive a lot of animal slaughter.
Chico11Kidlet 8y ago
It's funny the way things have gone. Vietnam is supposed to be a communist country. The Vietnamese people are some of the greediest nationalities I have ever come across and the government officials and politicians are the greediest.
- dang 8y ago
  Nationalistic slurs will get you banned here. Please don't post like this to HN again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
leandrod 8y ago
This is socialism for you. People are so poor they resort to illegal breadwinning. It happens in my native Brazil too, even if were are not overtly socialist (but heavily influenced).
- dang 8y ago
  Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
revskill 8y ago
Japanese people are taught in schools: We have nothing naturally, so you have to overcome yourself to beat the disadvantages of nature. Vietnamese people are taught in schools: We have everything naturally, our forests are gold, our beaches are silver. We're proud of it. Results: Blindly and stupid education is a serious problem in Vietnam. Large percentages of past generation is lazy, not productive. I don't even mention politics here. A hell. Shortly, to be successful and rich in Vietnam, you don't need talent or hard-working. You just need relationship. Who is Ho Chi Minh ? I don't even know if he was Chinese or Vietnamese. Most of what was told in schools are lie. Yes, it's a shocking truth: Most of things they taught us in schools are lie. To protect that communist party. Polices are to protect that party. No bad voice is allowed here. If you shout out bad things at the party, you'll be caught and get killed silently. Noone knows where you are.
- chinhodado 8y ago
  > Most of what was told in schools are lie. Do you have actually examples rather than hyperboles?
  - revskill 8y ago
    OK, for example, they taught very bad things about Vietnam Cong Hoa party, but the fact is that: Vietnam Cong Hoa party doesn't harm anyone. Who was the bad guy here ? The point here is that, as we grew up, we try to find out what the fact was, and it's not the same thing that they taught us. I don't even care what's the actual truth is, i just care that, they taught us the untruthy things.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - chinhodado 8y ago
      > Vietnam Cong Hoa party doesn't harm anyone There is misinformation from every sides, but be careful with blanket statements like that, because they're almost always false. For example, look up the 10/59 Decree where they brought guillotines throughout the southern rural areas and executed people on the spot if they suspected them of being communists.
coconut_crab 8y ago
I have tried my best to educate people around me to care more about environment to no avail, because to them "it's another guy's problem if we litter on the street, so keep doing it". What the government is doing ain't helping either, people want to make more money, to buy a car, bigger house etc... why should they care about some random monkeys in a forest that they will never see in their life? It's really depressing, maybe I should find an NGO and join them to protect the wild life.

80 points by mykowebhn 8y ago

Vietnam is a stunningly beautiful country but unfortunately a love of nature doesn't seem to have really taken hold there. At least not yet. Missing from all the gorgeous photos of Mekong Delta waterways and pristine beaches is all the trash you'll find strewn in heaps everywhere. My guess is it will take another generation for people there to appreciate how blessed they are to live in such surroundings but by then it will unfortunately be too late. To some extent this is just the inevitable consequence of a small but populous country hurtling into modernity but there are also some important cultural attitudes that need to change.

baolongtrann 8y ago
I'm a Viet, born and raised. My country is blessed with incredible scenery, diverse and natural. The coast line is as long as the country itself ffs. Now I won't claim that I'm an avid traveler, but from my limited traveling experience (only been to Australia, Korea, Japan and Hongkong on vacation, nothing too fancy), I have never been to a place that I would rank higher in terms of beautiful, natural scenery. However, the one thing that always caught me off guard from the few oversea trips that I've taken is that _everything is so clean over there_. That's literally the first thing that I always noticed when I get there and when I came back. Makes me feel sad, envious, and shameful.
- marapuru 8y ago
  > However, the one thing that always caught me off guard from the few oversea trips that I've taken is that _everything is so clean over there_. That's literally the first thing that I always noticed when I get there and when I came back. Makes me feel sad, envious, and shameful. My wife, who is originally from Indonesia, always notices the same thing in The Netherlands. The contrast couldn't be bigger. She also has these feelings of sadness and shame.
  - Mediterraneo10 8y ago
    Yet even in the Netherlands the cleanliness might be a recent thing. I lived in NL some years ago and remember it as the dog-shit-on-the-pavement capital of Western Europe. Only after I left, people tell me, things got stricter.
    - theandrewbailey 8y ago
      > dog-shit-on-the-pavement capital Oh gosh. The two eternal hazards of my childhood (that my parents would yell at me about) were dog shit and broken glass. I distinctly remember going to a school playground when I was about 6, and wanted to crawl through a plastic tunnel, but didn't when I saw a huge pile of shit in the middle. Now, pooper scooper laws took care of the former, but people still get drunk off their ass and leave bottles everywhere.
  - adventured 8y ago
    I'm certain they'll get there in time, as part of the development process. Indonesia has grown its economy ten fold in 20 years, a mind-boggling rate of improvement. Just as with China, as they rise they'll have far greater resources available for many other considerations such as preservation of nature and general beautification (which is obviously often expensive, close to a luxury depending on what stage of development you're at). That switch from scarcity to plentifulness, rapidly changes a lot of things in a society usually.
    - LeanderK 8y ago
      > resources available for many other considerations such as preservation of nature and general beautification (which is obviously often expensive, close to a luxury depending on what stage of development you're at) I am not sure this is true, isn't it that potential for damage to the enviroment (beyond only simple trash) increases with the economic power of the nation and therefore preservation would have to track economic progress? I would think that preservation efforts would have track economic progress, but the effects lag in time and therefore gets noticed too late and costly renaturation efforts need to happen.
- trickstra 8y ago
  Western tourist also immediately notice it when they come to SE Asia. It's a pity that this is such a strong memory. As a Vietnamese local, why do you think the plastic pollution is so widespread here? Sure, everything is packed in plastics, but so is in Japan. Why do people just not think twice about throwing their waste in a ditch or a river or leave their picnic at the beach? Or is most of it coming from the sea? What could change the mentality?
  - mc32 8y ago
    As an outsider, If I had to guess it would be lack of proper institutionalized waste management; one that’s not rigorously enforced. In the West in the early 20th century we also had burning heaps of trash in abandoned or empty lots.
    - ataturk 8y ago
      Don't worry, we'll be back to that pretty soon as the cost of throwing anything away has skyrocketed. I recently (as in, two days ago) had to dispose of a bedroom's worth of carpet and padding. It wasn't much material, but it cost me $56. Also, for all of you saying "wow our country is dirty" well pick up a fucking mop and get to work!
  - leejoramo 8y ago
    As a child growing up in 1970s USA, I remember the vast amount of trash along our roads, city streets, parks and beaches. It was fairly common to see people throw trash out of their car windows. What changed? I have never studied this, but I know we implemented large scale clean up projects, passed new laws and made a cultural shift in attitudes.
    - stefanfisk 8y ago
      I also remember Sweden being like this until early/mid 90s. The only real change AFAIK was peoples' attitudes, as a result of government campaigns. Hell, in the 60s you could watch wonderfully informational movies as this on the one and only available TV station https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrcrX9Qaw2o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrcrX9Qaw2o. (skip to 1:15 for the recommended practise of waste removal near the ocean).
- teekert 8y ago
  Yes, it's a pity, I traveled to Quan Lan Island in 2010, my wife and I thought it would be unspoiled and off track. But the boat there was full of people throwing litter over board, I even saw a lady pull a diaper of a child and throw it overboard without even thinking. The beaches were littered with colorful plastic. (I have a picture on my Nextcloud but no idea how to share it and my wife is very prominent in so I won't but the picture still make me feel sad. Edit, uploaded but only downloadable for 7 days or 100 times apparently (and cropped my wife out): [0]) I also got the feeling that small bays that were labelled as nice in our perhaps a bit dated travel guide were filled with large hotels between the time since they were labeled as such and when we arrived. Overall though I found Vietnam very, very beautiful indeed and the people were very kind as well (outside the tourist industry at least). I guess it's an education thing, as kid I constantly heard in school: Plastic stays around for 2500 years! Birds choke on your chewing gum! The hole in the ozone layer is our fault! TBH I felt pretty burdened, sad and responsible by/for it, but I guess it has its advantages. [0] https://send.firefox.com/download/c48c1add8b2d74a0/#qxQ-qoh-iMvZJoJY_Bt_gQ https://send.firefox.com/download/c48c1add8b2d74a0/#qxQ-qoh-...
  - yellowapple 8y ago
    > Birds choke on your chewing gum! This is the first I've heard of this one. It sounds reasonable, but something tells me your school was using this as an excuse to keep kids from sticking their gum all over the place ;)
- goda90 8y ago
  How big is social media there? The #trashtag trend is really awesome, and would be good to get going. It's using people's desire for attention to do some clean up.
  - baolongtrann 8y ago
    Social media, mainly facebook, is absolutely huge over here. I have seen a few popular local #trashtag pictures circling around. We generally catch up with internet trends pretty quickly. I wouldn't be surprised if it made national TV. It's awesome but unfortunately I don't think it would help much in the long run.
- gaongthothuy 8y ago
  As an American-born Vietnamese person, I'll provide context for other Western readers: There is no real US substitute I can think of for experiencing living in Vietnam. I grew up in NoVA, and would go on month-long summer trips to Vietnam with my family to visit relatives. My asian friends from China, India, and the Philippines would go on similar trips with their families too, so we would share stories and commiserate with each other. We joked with the Korean kids how they had it easy, and would tell the White kids how it's like the opposite of 'vacation'. Living outside Hanoi with my relatives and seeing day-to-day life in Vietnam made me thankful for my Western lifestyle. I was used to the typical US suburban cushiness, and this was like bootcamp: no A/C, no American toilets (only squat ones), less reliable internet, widely varying food standards (having diarrhea in Florida-like weather is awful), and commonplace dirtiness and pollution (imagine NYC before the EPA but more widespread). Even for me, there would be moments of culture shock seeing street food vendors selling field rats or shop owners dumping loose garbage into alleys. Things you would be shocked to see happen in the US without immediate reprimand and regulation are "just a part of life" in Vietnam. There is a huge cultural disconnect to hurdle between practices that are acceptable in Vietnam vs. the US. Finally, there is the topic of education. For those asians who came from rural lifestyles not very long ago, education was not widely accessible or particularly advanced (e.g. college-level subject study), thus, many people did not grow up receiving the same learnings. This is where folk beliefs come in and fill the void (i.e. the "old wives tale" equivalent). It's information based on tertiary cause-effect understanding, or explanation derived from non-scientific study. For example, a handful of my older relatives believe that rains causes lice (as in lice spontaneously generate from rain), therefore, keeping your head dry in the rain prevents lice. This is something that could be easily discredited if there was effort put into convincing them otherwise or letting them discover it's not true. It's really an incredible shame that ignorance, unawareness, and fallaciousness have lead to such a tragedy of animals and environments being destroyed. Vietnam needs more figures to go out into the public and address ass-backwards thinking like drinking bile or eating horns will cure ailments. It's certainly as dumb or dumber than anti-vax stories. Modern medicine is already a solution to many of these "folk cures", with greater efficacy and less harm, yet it's ignored in favor of some random concoction because that's the "traditional way". It makes as much sense as hanging herbs in my doorway to ward off the flu over getting a flu shot.
ivanhoe 8y ago
You can find that in pretty much any underdeveloped area in the world. Not sure what exactly is the socio-psychological explanation for that, but poor societies usually just don't have interest/time/energy to take care about nature or even their surroundings when they have to work hard to survive.
- empath75 8y ago
  The police and governments are often corrupt or non functional so effectively enforcing anything like litter laws is almost a nonsensical concept. A lot of these places can barely enforce laws of any kind.
wdutch 8y ago
I had a similar impression there too. I think they have a difficult decision to make in terms of balancing raising the quality of life of the people through industrialization and tourism against preserving their natural heritage. Here in the UK, it's easy to chastise Vietnam for not preserving their wildlife when we have nothing left to destroy. We already have a developed economy and we did destroy all the habitats in the process. I don't think there is an easy answer for Vietnam and other places in a similar situation such as Borneo. I just hope the next generation have some natural beauty left in the world.
- cageface 8y ago
  This is definitely an important part of it but corruption, misplaced faith in folk medicines, and a desire to show off new wealth also play a big role.
- arethuza 8y ago
  The "Empty Forests" in the title made me think of the "deer forests" of the Scottish Highlands which generally have almost no trees! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer_forest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer_forest
- Steve44 8y ago
  > and we did destroy all the habitats in the process. The deforestation of the UK is a lot older than I think many people realise. I used to have a really good link but can’t locate it now, https://treesforlife.org.uk/forest/deforestation/ https://treesforlife.org.uk/forest/deforestation/ is a less detailed timeline which looks to convey a similar story. > The peak for Scotland's woodlands was about 5,000 years ago, when tree cover and diversity was at its greatest extent. > "natural changes in climate, and around 4,500 years ago" and "The treeline became lower" > By the time the Romans arrived, over half of our native forests had been lost > By the 18th century, woodland cover reached its all time low I’m not sure how I feel about lambasting other countries for deforestation after we’ve done ours. Perhaps we should offer to return ours to its natural state to set a good example……..
  - stuaxo 8y ago
tluyben2 8y ago
I travel a lot (work and pleasure) and you see this almost at least in every poorer Asian country; Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Sri Lanka. So much plastic, everywhere. I cannot understand people can live with it. I mean if it's around the corner, maybe you can but people just let it lie in front of their doors. In NL people sweep 3 leaves in the compost heap that is in front of their doors; plastic or other crap is unheard of. I understand differences, but how can you live in these circumstances; it's not only the very poor, it's also in front or in gardens of villa's in those countries. No-one seems to care. It's a crying shame as all of these have amazing nature contrasted with utter disregard of that nature in many ways.
- badpun 8y ago
  You most likely only start to care about your surroundings when you exceed a certain income treshold. Below that, you’re just too occupied with bare survival.
  - tluyben2 8y ago
    I agree and find that logical, but I saw many villas with expensive western cars in front that had heaps of plastics in front and in the garden. Those people seem to not be struggling with survival but just don't care?
    - strangegecko 8y ago
      Cultural inertia. People don't just suddenly change their habits because they have more money. I'm in Taiwan and see rich people live with what seems like poor people habits all the time. Everyone is simply used to it and sees it as normal. I think attitude changes are more likely a result of education and the opinions and behavior of your peers. Limited contact with other cultures and ideas keeps habits and concepts of normalcy where they are.
    - senorjazz 8y ago
      I've noticed rich people in poor countries are very aware of what is not becoming of them. They were probably waiting for some poor person to come work for a few dollars a day to come do the jobs beneath them. I've seen it with the wife's family (middle class South American). They are used to my strange ways now, but they were shocked when they saw me washing the car, doing the gardening, tidying the yard, "why are you doing that, you have money, just pay someone".
liveoneggs 8y ago
it can all start with you. Tell someone.

Halluxfboy009 8y ago

Mankind must find a way to curb our population growth and our greed. We are, and have been blind. Not only are we destroying the natural world, we will ultimately destroy ourselves. Let us somehow find a way to limit our population growth and give those that are then born a first rate education so that they are capable of seeing and appreciating the big picture. Knowledge, objectivity - the realization that life on this planet is precious and rare and, irreplaceable.

adventured 8y ago
We already are dramatically curbing our population growth. The rate of global population growth has plunged since ~1970. The rate will drop from a peak of about 2% per year in 1970 to 0.2% by ~2060. We've already roughly cut the growth rate in half in 40 some years. By the late 2030s, we should have the rate of growth returned to pre industrialization boom numbers (when the rate began to rapidly increase). It takes time to bring the numbers down, we'll be near population contraction by the time we're into the 2050s.
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  The metric that matters is resources consumed per person. If people's goals are to achieve consumption levels similar to upper middle class in USA or Europe, then it doesn't matter if the total population growth is slowing down, or even contracting, as resource consumption will still very much be exploding.

Spooky23 8y ago

Perhaps it’s time to campaign against Chinese medicine, which seems to drive a lot of animal slaughter.

Chico11Kidlet 8y ago

It's funny the way things have gone. Vietnam is supposed to be a communist country. The Vietnamese people are some of the greediest nationalities I have ever come across and the government officials and politicians are the greediest.

dang 8y ago
Nationalistic slurs will get you banned here. Please don't post like this to HN again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

leandrod 8y ago

This is socialism for you. People are so poor they resort to illegal breadwinning. It happens in my native Brazil too, even if were are not overtly socialist (but heavily influenced).

dang 8y ago
Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

revskill 8y ago

Japanese people are taught in schools: We have nothing naturally, so you have to overcome yourself to beat the disadvantages of nature. Vietnamese people are taught in schools: We have everything naturally, our forests are gold, our beaches are silver. We're proud of it. Results: Blindly and stupid education is a serious problem in Vietnam. Large percentages of past generation is lazy, not productive. I don't even mention politics here. A hell. Shortly, to be successful and rich in Vietnam, you don't need talent or hard-working. You just need relationship. Who is Ho Chi Minh ? I don't even know if he was Chinese or Vietnamese. Most of what was told in schools are lie. Yes, it's a shocking truth: Most of things they taught us in schools are lie. To protect that communist party. Polices are to protect that party. No bad voice is allowed here. If you shout out bad things at the party, you'll be caught and get killed silently. Noone knows where you are.

chinhodado 8y ago
> Most of what was told in schools are lie. Do you have actually examples rather than hyperboles?
- revskill 8y ago
  OK, for example, they taught very bad things about Vietnam Cong Hoa party, but the fact is that: Vietnam Cong Hoa party doesn't harm anyone. Who was the bad guy here ? The point here is that, as we grew up, we try to find out what the fact was, and it's not the same thing that they taught us. I don't even care what's the actual truth is, i just care that, they taught us the untruthy things.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - chinhodado 8y ago
    > Vietnam Cong Hoa party doesn't harm anyone There is misinformation from every sides, but be careful with blanket statements like that, because they're almost always false. For example, look up the 10/59 Decree where they brought guillotines throughout the southern rural areas and executed people on the spot if they suspected them of being communists.

coconut_crab 8y ago

I have tried my best to educate people around me to care more about environment to no avail, because to them "it's another guy's problem if we litter on the street, so keep doing it". What the government is doing ain't helping either, people want to make more money, to buy a car, bigger house etc... why should they care about some random monkeys in a forest that they will never see in their life? It's really depressing, maybe I should find an NGO and join them to protect the wild life.