Water and wetlands: The Mekong's blood and heart Press play to
view the narrated slideshow. On November 30-December 1, 2009, 40
representatives from government, NGO, and business from Vietnam,
Thailand, Cambodia, and Lao PDR met in HCMC to discuss the role
of civil society in water resource management decision-making.
The workshop was part of the Mekong Region Water Dialogues
(MRWD), a project supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
of Finland to address water governance issues in the four Lower
Mekong countries. This meeting focused on wetlands management,
particularly in the Vietnamese potion of the Mekong Delta.
According to one of the presentations, the government of Vietnam
has spent billions of dollars on flood control projects but the
disruption of the delta’s natural hydrology has created new and
unanticipated problems. Most significant is the increased
potential for catastrophic floods as a result of the loss of the
delta’s natural absorptive capacity. The risks inherent in the
structural approa