Heavy debt to the delta!

Working in Ca Mau , with colleagues from Ca Mau Newspaper, I visited the unfinished dike section built in 2020 in Dam Doi district.

Traveling and writing is always a joy and happiness for journalists; for us, along with responsibility, there are also personal urges and a great love when writing stories about the delta. And it is conveyed through the perspective of an insider , the perspective of a child who has been attached to this land for a lifetime.

The 5-part series “Water security is protecting the lives of the delta!” was carried out with that mindset, as well as many other journalistic topics, but it has its own difficulties along with many lingering concerns when there are still many challenges ahead, and issues that have not been clearly answered.

Compared to many colleagues working in the Mekong Delta, we are a bit lucky to always be encouraged and supported by the leaders and the Editorial Board of Vinh Long Newspaper to write articles and carry out topics that extend beyond the main propaganda mission of the local Party newspaper. Every year, reporters must develop high-quality topics; in which, having good works to participate in the "Mekong Delta Journalism Award" is always considered one of the top tasks.

Right from the first “Mekong Delta Journalism Award”, we participated and were lucky to win a high prize. Through 7 times of organizing the award, the collective of reporters of Vinh Long Newspaper always paid special attention and selected the most elaborately invested works to submit for participation. Because this is an opportunity for the Delta journalism team to exchange and learn from each other, this is also an important journalism award that motivates and raises the level of many writers in the region, including ourselves.

With this entry into the “Mekong Delta Journalism Award”, perhaps we have posed ourselves a somewhat overwhelming problem, because when it comes to water security - in this case, the Mekong River water source - we need to summarize both “internal” and “external” risk factors.

But because of limited capacity, the problem can only be temporarily confined within the region as an urgent need. And through practical trips across the delta, it is the reality of life and the characters themselves that have broken open and opened up for themselves many problems that seem to have been too familiar for a lifetime.

The depth of rice field culture and river culture belongs to the rice culture. Photo: NGUYEN HOANG KHA

The story of each farmer is a new lesson from old stories, helping us to absorb more depth of the culture of the fields, the culture of the river, which belongs to the culture of rice, has been repositioned the dimensions, the characteristic attributes in the culture of the South. Which perhaps has more or less faded in the younger generations later.

We have just seen a crucial problem that if we do not deeply understand this land, our love can easily become superficial and have arbitrary, hasty and inappropriate behaviors. Even the way of naming and using words to refer to rivers and waters is a vast cultural space, from rivers, canals, canals, tac, xeo, khem, vam, voi, bung... but it is worrying that there are increasingly behaviors, planning, management, and administration that sometimes go against the "cultural flow of the delta rivers and waters". The flood season in the delta is now implicitly called the flood season.

Just think, since the time of Oc Eo culture, through several waves of sea advance and sea retreat, this land has only had floods - whether it is fresh water from the Mekong River or salt water from the sea, but there are no floods! Even the people of the West gradually call the flood season by the wrong name, misunderstand the nature of the flood season, which is truly heartbreaking. Therefore, in the rainy season, the fields are parched, while the cities suffer from constant flooding.

Saltwater intrusion is a normal phenomenon in the hydrological regime of this downstream area, but now it has become a problem and we have to build dikes and sluices everywhere. We should clearly define our thinking and perception: does this delta need to adapt to or fight climate change? To avoid planning and solutions that go against the natural flow of the entire Mekong River system.

A patch of forest in Ho Gui, Dam Doi district is in the process of being stripped bare by landslides.

Therefore, along with water diplomacy , the internal issue needs to be resolved well. This delta was created by water, and this delta will no longer exist when the water source is damaged, treated unnaturally and gradually depleted. The work only aims to contribute a little love, a small voice like a grain of alluvium with millions of grains of alluvium hoping to enrich the banks of the river, which is also the home, the lifeblood of more than ten million residents of this beloved delta.

Having good journalistic works is first and foremost the responsibility of journalists, a love like a debt of gratitude to the Southern land, a debt to each farmer, to each river, to each field; but it is the motivation from the "Mekong Delta Journalism Award" as a "pedestal" over the years that has cultivated and raised the level of writers in the delta.

• Article and photos: NGOC TRANG

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