Using less water & using a #drone to fertilize are new techniques that Van is trying & #Vietnam hopes will help solve a #paradox at the heart of #GrowingRice : The finicky crop isn’t just vulnerable to #ClimateChange but also contributes uniquely to it.
Vietnam is the world's 3rd largest #rice exporter, & the staple importance to #Vietnamese culture is palpable in the #Mekong Delta.
It annoys me that a US non-profit group called the "Southeast Asia Resource Action Center" is actually only focused on immigrant communities from 3 #Mekong countries.
The focus is fine and good - its just the name that annoys me.
Activists, journalists, environmental lawyers and others who raise attention for environmental issues in the Mekong region say they feel threatened by authoritarian governments.
Environment defenders say they feel under surveillance and at risk both in their home countries and abroad.
Today in Labor History December 10, 1861: Nguyễn Trung Trực, along with his militia, sunk the French lorcha L'Esperance. Nguyễn Trung Trực was a fisherman who organized and led a guerilla rebellion against French colonial forces in the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam in the 1860s. They used snipers to assassinate isolated French soldiers and chased French soldiers around the countryside, attacking military installations that were left undefended. Their intimate knowledge of the territory and their skill in hit-and-run tactics allowed them to inflict substantial casualties on the European troops.
#Vietnam’s “rice bowl” delta region, where #MekongRiver empties into #SouthChinaSea, is predicted to run out of #sand in just over a decade. Losses to riverbed are devastating lives & harming the local economy.