<Review Article>Actual Status and Some Conservation Problems of Coastal Biodiversity in VietNam

Abstract

Vietnam is situated in the Southeast Asian monsoon region, with a long coastline of more than 3, 200 km. and a large continental shelf. The coastal area are occupied by a rich fauna and flora, a diversified landscape with typical coastal tropical ecosystems including: estuarine wetlands, mangrove forests, coral reefs, seagrass beds, coastal bays and lagoons. The mangrove forests in southern part of the country were seriously destroyed during the war. After the war, rapid socio- economic development in coastal zone, especially aquaculture, industrial and city construction, tourism had provided many negative influences on the coastal biodiversity : 1) Increasing of threatened wildlife 2) Degradation of coastal ecosystems 3) Decreasing of living resources in coastal waters. In response to this critical situation of the coastal biodiversity, many legal and technical measures were recently realized at national as well as in international level : Issues of different Laws related to Biodiversity Conservation, (Law of Fisheries, Law of Biodiversity), National Action Plan of Biodiversity, Participation in different activities related to World Biodiversity Strategy, Standardisation technical measures in fishing operations. A system of 15 Marine Protected Areas have been proposed to be established along the coastline, and some Marine Nature Reserves have already been recognized by UNESCO.