UNESCO Biosphere Reserves

In my role as the Natural Sciences Officer at UNESCO, I am responsible for managing projects relating to what are called Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Reserves, in Vietnam. I had never heard of these places before starting at UNESCO but there are over 500 UNESCO Biosphere Reserves in 105 countries around the world, including 6 in Vietnam (click here for more information on these) and 14 in Australia.

Biosphere Reserves are areas which are designated by UNESCO as having significant natural heritage and requiring international conservation effort. They are similar to World Heritage sites but maybe without the unique appeal to warrant World Heritage status. But the key difference between the two types of UNESCO heritage sites is that MAB Reserves, as the name suggests, deal with the interaction of the local indigineous people with their environment. These sites aim to protect and restore the natural environment while also preserving and enhancing the livelihood of local inhabitants. Balancing these two aims is particularly important in Vietnam where:
- Over-population, agriculture and war have led to widespread deforestation and environmental degradation;
- The indigineous culture is so rich and diverse and warrants considerable preservation efforts (eg: Vietnam has over 50 ethnic minority populations, each with their own distinct cultures);
- Many rural people live in poverty and restricting their access to natural resources within protected ares can further impoverish them. They may therefore need assistance to sustain their livelihood through alternative means.

A site that I am currently working on is the Pu Mat National Park which is within the Western Nghe An Province, some 400km south-west of Hanoi (a 9 hour drive!). The park is large and has diverse flora and fauna (and many endangered species) as well as a number of villages of ethnic minority people. (Click here for more info)

I visited Pu Mat in mid December to attend a series of interesting workshops with representatives of the Pu Mat Management Board and chiefs of two villages located in the reserve. The aim of the workshops was to raise the local people's awareness and participation in forest and natural resource conservation. We were also training the Management Board in community participation with a focus on culturally appropriate livelihood development, e.g. suiting the individual needs of each ethnic minority group.

Recommendations so far include allocating new land for particular communities, establishing new intensive farming practices, developing handicraft jobs and expanding tourism activities in the area. The study is planned to be completed in May 2009. More details then, I hope...

Ha Long Bay

On the weekend of 14/15 November, I visited the UNESCO World Heritage listed Ha Long Bay with a few of my friends. I had heard so much about this place over many years and it was great to finally see it for myself. The visit was particularly relevant for me in my current role as a UNESCO project officer working on an environmental and visitor management strategy for the bay.

Ha Long Bay is the most famous of Vietnam's 5 World Heritage Sites and has been inscribed due it's "outstanding natural heritage value". The other 4 sites are all in the centre of the country and hopefully i'll get to visit these very soon! (click here for more info on all 5 sites)

Ha Long Bay is famous for its Karst formations, 2000 or so limestone islands which rise steeply out of the sea. These features have led the area to be listed under not one but two World Heritage criteria (oustanding universal asthetic and geological value), which is actually quite rare. Ha Long is also currently being considered as one of the 7 wonders of the natural world, which requires a fair bit of campaigning to secure votes, and it's currently distracting the managers of the bay from my project!

The local legend of Ha Long Bay says that long ago when the Vietnamese were fighting Chinese invaders, the gods sent a family of dragons to help defend the land. This family of dragons began spitting out jewels and jade which turned into the islands dotting the bay, linking together to form a great wall against the invaders. The people kept their land safe and formed what later became the country of Vietnam. After that, the dragons decided to stay on earth and the place where Mother Dragon flew down was named Ha Long, or "descending dragon".

The tour we were on included bus transfers between Hanoi and Ha Long City (3 hours each way) and a 2 day/1 night boat tour on the bay. Click here for tour details.

At Ha Long City, we were herded around the other tourist groups and onto one of the hundreds of boats anchored at the wharf - a chaotic scene if ever i saw one! But once we actually set sail, it all become much more serene and we were able to start appreciating the beauty of the bay. It really is impressive and unfortunately the photos probably don't do it justice.

We stopped in on an island with a large cave, Hang Dau Go (Wooden stakes Cave). There were many interesting natural rock formations inside and bright lighting of different colours is projected onto the cave walls. A bit tacky maybe, but charming nevertheless.

We also visited a couple of small floating fishing villages which was probably the highlight of my trip. It's amazing to think that many of these people have lived their entire lives on a little floating platform with underwater fish nets. They live off their fishstocks and trade with neighbouring villages and passing boats.

Other activities included kayaking, jumping into the water from the top of the boat, and dining out on fresh seafood. And when that all became too tiring, we took a nap on the top deck of the boat on our trip back to Ha Long City.

Overall, my impressions of my Ha Long Bay experience are mixed. The natural beauty of the bay is stunning but i was left with the feeling that there are a lot more sites to explore and and I never really knew where we were, where we were going, and what else was out there. Many tourists comment that they are not provided with enough information on the visiting options available to them in Ha Long Bay. There are also environmental issues associated with pollution from tourist activites. Hopefully these issues can be improved following completion of the current UNESCO studies.

Halloween Floods

On the weekend of the 31st October (Halloween) Hanoi was hit with its worst floods in 35 years. Almost 600mm fell in a 2 days. The strange thing is that we are supposed to be at the start of the dry season (average November rainfall is only 40mm). The locals are saying this must be proof of climate change.

The rain started with a bang early on the Friday morning and just kept going and going. By the time I went to work, flooding was already widespread. But things got a lot worse through the day. A colleague of mine took 5 hours to travel to work, most of which was spent pushing her broken-down motorbike through waist-deep floodwaters! By lunchtime, my office building was surrounded by floodwaters and our street had become a river.

Heading home later that evening was a challenge and my moto taxi driver did well to get me back home to my suburb, Ngoc Ha. But even he wasn’t prepared to drive down the lane to my house...that was for me to walk through.

The rain really was unbelievable. To put things in perspective, 600mm is about the total annual average rainfall for Paris and about half that for Sydney. Hanoi’s average annual rainfall is 1.7m so this storm was huge even by this city’s wet standards. I was at home in Newcastle (Australia) in June 2007 for the worst floods there on record (300mm in 6 hours) so I can at least say that I have been getting some good first hand experience of major flooding events - good for a water engineer like myself!

The impacts of the floods across Hanoi were devastating: 92 deaths, 40000 residents evacuated and a damage bill exceeding US$2 billion. Thousands of houses are still without power, 2 weeks after the flood event. Agriculture in the Hanoi region was particularly badly hit and food prices for some vegetables increased tenfold overnight. Despite this, I have been amazed by how the Hanoi people seem to have taken all this in their stride, cleaned up the mess, and carried on with their daily lives without too much fuss. They are a hardy lot, these Hanoians…

My Work

It’s now been 4 weeks since I started work at UNESCO Hanoi. Here’s a quick summary of what UNESCO is all about and where I work.

For those not familiar with UNESCO, it stands for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. It’s probably most recognised for overseeing the determination and management of World Heritage Sites, of which there are 5 in Vietnam (the most famous being Ha Long Bay and the Hue Citadel). UNESCO is what’s known as a specialised UN agency and is actually only a very small part of the overall UN system. There are another 25 or so organisations which make up the UN, and most of them are represented in Vietnam. The total UN puzzle is pretty crazy and I don’t think I’ll ever work it out.

I have at least figured out our office structure. The head of the office is a Danish lady who’s the UNESCO Vietnam Representative and Office Manager so she pretty much runs the show. The rest of the office consists of 25 local and international staff which make up the Culture, Education, Communications and Admin teams, and ofcourse the one-man Science team (that’s me!).
The UNESCO Hanoi offices are actually quite close to my home. It’s less than 2km and I get a moto taxi there in the morning (10,000 Dong, or less than AU$1) and walk home in the evening. Because the office is also centrally located and close to the old quarter and Hoan Kiem, it’s also great for eating out at lunch or catching up with friends after work.

The office building itself is a beautiful old French colonial house, which has been restored.

I spent the first couple of weeks in what I can only guess was the old maid’s quarters. I was sharing this office with a Vietnamese lady, called Huong Nguyen Thanh, or NT Huong for short. I only mention her name because I have recently been moved to sit next to my supervisor, another Vietnamese lady called Huong Nguyen Thanh Thi, or NTT Huong for short! Anyway, my new office is what used to be the main balcony of the house which has now been enclosed and fitted out with 4 desks side by side. My 3 Vietnamese balcony mates are great company and we are also joined by the office cat on most days.

I’m still familiarising myself with the projects I will be working on (and taking over from NTT – she’s about to about to go off and have a baby) so there’s not much to report on yet. However I have started helping out on the Ha Long Bay project which involves the development of environmental and planning studies and a visitor management study. More on this and my other projects some other time…

Where I Live

Hello again. Well it's been a couple of weeks since my last entry. But never mind, better late than never. ..and hey, it could very well have been never! Anyway, I've just had my housewarming party this weekend so i thought i'd write a bit about the house and suburb i'll be calling home for the next year.

I moved in 2 weeks ago now. Fortunately, one of the flatmates from this house had recently moved out when i arrived in Hanoi and i jumped at the opportunity. And yes, it's an Aussie house: 2 other AYADs (Australian Youth Ambassadors for Development), Hugh and Pilar and 1 VIDA (Volunteers International for Development, Australia), Samitha.

Hanoi city is actually pretty small. Like most cities, the suburbia outskirts stretch out for miles but the city itself is very compact, with most of the interesting bits within a 5km by 5km area. The tourist area, which covers Hoan Kiem and the Old Quarter,is less than 2km across. I'll probably write more about Hanoi at some later stage but at this stage i'm still finding my way around!

I live in the Ba Dinh district, which is west of the Old Quarter. Most of the young volunteers live in this area. It doesn't quite have Newtown's funkiness but it's alternative enough while still being suitably close to the action of the Old Quarter (I can't imagine actually living in the Old Quarter!).

Ba Dinh covers quite a large area and i live pretty much in the centre of it. It's a good spot, close to the Botanical Gardens (for those morning runs...), the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum (Where you can pay your respects to "Uncle" Ho himself), markets, cafes and street food. I'm also less than 2km from my work.

My house is located in the Ngoc Ha area, which means "beautiful pearl". I haven't seen too many pearls around but apparently Ngoc Ha used to be very famous for its gardens. Unfortunately the gardens have now mostly been replaced with buildings but the area still has a certain charm.

My House is down a little lane 300m from the main street and the only access is by motorbike or on foot. I actually quite enjoy walking down my lane and i'm starting to get on nodding terms with some of my neighbours which include a bike repair guy who must be in his 80's, a butcher who cuts his meat up out on the street, and ofcourse the $1 DVD shop guy.

Mine is not a typical Hanoi house - it's not super skinny and it doesn't open straight onto the street. It does have lots of bedrooms though, 7 of them actually, which i understand is only slightly more than many Hanoi family houses. The house also has 6 bathrooms and a big balcony on the 4th floor (I'm already planning the Triple J Hottest 100 party up there!).


But a real selling point for me was the spiral staircase! I never thought i'd enjoy walking up and down stairs so much.

I have one of the smaller rooms in the house, which is fine by me, but i might consider upgrading when Jen comes over for a while mid next year. No promises Jen, but i'll do my best!

If nothing else, the bigger bedrooms have decent mattresses, which would definitely be an improvement on my current arrangement - 2 thin foam mattresses on top of each other.



I should mention the housewarming party although there's not all that much to say about it. Lots of Australians and a fair few tiger beers. Samitha's home-made spring rolls were a highlight though. Thanks Sam!


Ok, that will do for now. I've attached a few photos of my house and the area but as i'm sure i've told most you, the only way to really experience Ngoc Ha is to pay me a vist. Bye for now.

First Impressions and ICM

It's been 2 weeks since i've landed in Hanoi and i still hadn't written a word until now. So here it is....

First of all, i should mention that I spent a wonderful week with Jen in Bacolod, Philippines. See Jen's blog http://www.jeninthephilippines.blogspot.com/ for more info.

I landed in Hanoi on 29th September along with the 7 other AYAD's posted in Northern Vietnam. We are a motley crew from all over Australia and are working in a range of disciplines, including environmental science, IT, gender equality, commerce and marketing. But so far at least, we are sharing "The Dream"...

These first 2 weeks have been set aside for us as In-Country Orientation (ICO) which has been run by our wonderful ICO Managers, Hanh and Hien. One thing I've noticed here is a lot of people's names start with the letter "H" (my counterpart at work is called Huong).

Anyway, our ICO activites have included meeting other Australian volunteers already in Hanoi, learning vietnamese (4 lessons down so far), learning how to cross the road (not as easy as it sounds), opening a bank account (definitely not as easy as it sounds), drinking (Bia Hoi - Drink cheap but pretty ordinary beer while sitting on tiny plastic seats on the side of a road while trying not to be hit by a passing motorbike, the driver of which has probably had one or two Bia Hoi himself!) and ofcourse eating loads and loads of fantastic Vietnamese food (including the national dish,"pho" - beef noodle soup)

...Oh yeah, and karaoke!

We have had a couple of sessions already but the highlight was probably singing "Smells like teen spirit" with a bit of dancing on the table thrown in for good measure. We hear that karaoke is a serious business pastime in this part of the world and i now feel suitably prepared to start work next week.

Actually, the karaoke shop owner ended up charging us more than the standard rate because we were, in his words, "ugly singers". Tough but fair.

But on to more important stuff and my first impressions of this unique city. Having never visited it previously, the street chaos was initially overwhelming but it's actually organised chaos and its just another amazing aspect of what makes this place tick.

However, my second impression, and one that still surprises me now, is how green the city is. All the streets are lined with trees and there are plenty of parks, botanical gardens and lakes where the locals can chill out away from the chaos.

I have been staying in a hotel since i've been here and it's right in the tourist part of town, Hoan Kiem. Walking around Hoan Kiem lake has been a great way to start the day. There are plenty of Thai Chi classes (including one group of all ladies with swords), as well as games of badminton and foot badminton.

Ok, that's probably enough for now. Tomorrow i move into my new house and I start work on Monday!