Vietnam has paid for its rapid industrialization with rising pollution and the loss of natural resources, including forests, clean water and biodiversity, said experts at recent seminar on biodiversity conservation. Scientists at the seminar, which was hosted by NGO Pan Nature, said that poaching, urbanization, poorly planned hydroelectric dams, and unsustainable timber harvesting were destroying the country’s green image. Vietnam exports more than 5 million cubic metres of timber each year. They added that Vietnam’s system for environmental impact assessments - in which project managers hire private firms to do assessments - was flawed and that the assessments were not taken seriously.
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