Enhance responsibility for environmental protection

Implementing the Law on Environmental Protection, the Provincial People's Committee has issued 2 decisions and submitted to the Provincial People's Council 3 resolutions to ensure timeliness, consistency, and meeting the requirements of environmental management in the province. In addition, the provincial planning for the period 2021 - 2030, with a vision to 2050, has integrated environmental protection, nature conservation and biodiversity conservation plans; plans for natural disaster prevention and control and climate change in line with the common viewpoints and goals on environmental protection of the Law; National Environmental Protection Strategy, National Environmental Protection Plan. In 3 years of implementation, the province has allocated nearly 300 billion VND for environmental protection work; appraised and approved the appraisal results of 30 environmental impact assessment reports of projects; appraised and issued adjustments to 36 environmental licenses for investment projects, production, business and service establishments in the area; People's Committees of districts and cities appraised and issued 39 environmental licenses in the area.

The domestic waste treatment area of Yen Binh town (Quang Binh) is invested in a scale to treat 400 - 600 kg of waste/hour.

Implementing pollution control work for industrial zones, clusters and craft villages, Binh Vang Industrial Cluster has built a centralized wastewater treatment plant with a scale of 2,000 m³/day and night with an automatic wastewater monitoring system. The Provincial People's Committee has carried out the task of "Investigating and assessing the capacity to receive wastewater, the carrying capacity of river water sources and mapping the wastewater receiving areas of the main rivers in the province" to control the quality of the water environment; thereby assessing the capacity of 62 rivers and 74 ponds and lakes. At the same time, monitoring the status and changes in air quality in the period of 2016 - 2023 has been implemented. The results show that most localities have average to good air quality.

Attention has been paid to the collection and treatment of urban solid waste. To date, 10/12 solid waste treatment areas have been invested in, of which 6 have been put into operation and 4 are under construction. In addition, in the period of 2022 - 2024, the province has conducted 2 inspections on environmental protection at 9 projects; conducted 17 inspections at 77 projects and facilities and detected and handled 13 organizations and individuals who violated the law with a fine of nearly 2.5 billion VND.

Thanks to the attention, leadership and close direction of the province and sectors at all levels; the responsibility of agencies, organizations and individuals for environmental protection work has been raised, gradually overcoming and limiting environmental pollution at production facilities and public places; promptly handling and limiting hot spots causing environmental pollution. Contributing to increasing the province's forest coverage rate to 59.3%, the rate of solid waste collected in urban areas maintained at 95%, the treatment rate reached 86%. Ha Giang 's environmental protection results assessment index in 2023 reached 55.26 points, ranking 35/63 provinces and cities.

However, with many socio-economic difficulties, low educational level of people in remote areas; in the process of implementing the Law on Environmental Protection, many problems and shortcomings have arisen, causing difficulties in the implementation process, such as: The organizational system and management apparatus for environmental protection have not met the requirements, especially at the grassroots level; most industrial parks and clusters have not yet invested in complete environmental protection infrastructure; equipment, means and facilities such as monitoring stations, quality assessment of environmental components have not met practical requirements; the work of classifying, collecting and treating domestic solid waste still has many limitations, has not been classified at the source, the treatment sites have not been fully invested, and in rural areas, there has not been attention paid to collection and treatment; some contents need to be specified in detail by central ministries and branches but have not been implemented; the annual budget allocated to implement environmental protection activities has increased every year but has not met actual needs...

According to the Department of Agriculture and Environment, in order for the Law to continue to be implemented and be consistent with the current rapidly developing socio-economic situation, the National Assembly needs to continue to review, amend and supplement the difficulties and shortcomings of the Law and guiding decrees; pay attention to increasing the level of support from the central budget for disadvantaged provinces to carry out tasks and projects on environmental protection; perfect the unified organizational structure of the Agriculture and Environment sector from the central to local levels; central ministries and branches should promptly amend and adjust the difficulties in the documents guiding the implementation of the Law, as a basis for localities to put the Law into practice.

Article and photos: Luong Ha

Source: https://baohagiang.vn/xa-hoi/202505/nang-cao-trach-nhiem-bao-ve-moi-truong-ad91dfb/