VIETNAM - Devastation of beaches concerns experts

thanhniennews.com, june 16, 2007

Pham Tu, deputy head of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), told a workshop which opened in the central city of Nha Trang Friday that Vietnam’s seas had been seriously polluted by waste, particularly from marine tourism projects.
Halong Bay in the north, recognized by UNCESO as a World Heritage Site, Lang Co lagoon in the central Thua Thien-Hue province, and Nha Trang bay, one of the world’s most beautiful, were living proofs for this, he added.
In Nha Trang, where diving is one of the main attractions, received 1.1 million tourists last year, 30 per cent of them foreign.
The development of scuba diving there has badly affected coral reefs as well as biological diversity.
Nguyen Van Long of the Nha Trang Oceanography Institute said: "Coral cover in Nha Trang bay shrank from 52.4 per cent in 1994 to 21.2 per cent in 2005."

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