Forest rangers inspect regrown forests in Gia Lai Province’s Krông Chro District. — VNA/VNS Photo Hồng Điệp GIA LAI — The Tây Nguyên (Central Highlands) province of Gia Lai has been growing new forests and protecting existing ones in recent years to expand forest cover and improve people’s livelihoods. The province, which has the largest forest cover in the Tây Nguyên region, planted nearly 25,300ha in 2017-20, 6.3 times its target. In Mang Yang District’s Hra Commune, the Hra Protective Forest management board allocated more than 6,300ha of forests last year to individuals, households and communities to exploit while also protecting them. Nguyễn Văn Chín, head of the board, said besides planting and protecting forests, the board focuses on advocacy activities to enhance awareness of households and communities living near forests of the need to protect them. Together with local authorities it organises advocacy activities to annually reach around 1,500 people in the commune’s 12 villages. With these and support for illegal loggers to overcome their family’s financial difficulties, it has managed to stop the logging and make loggers forest guardians. Dương Xuân Kiếm used to be an illegal logger but is now the head of a forest protection group in the commune. He and others used to cut down forests to sell wood to feed their families, but after receiving help from the board to stabilise their lives, they have become forest protectors, he said. His group protects 400ha of natural forests. Last year the province Department of Agriculture and Rural Development gave him an award as an exemplary forest protector. Seeing the good examples set by the former illegal loggers, other residents in the commune have also stopped cutting trees and are instead keen to be allotted tracts of forest for protection. The money authorities pay them for this task helps them have a stable life. Krông Chro District is one of the localities to …
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Vietnamese prioritise health, finance following pandemic: survey
A year on since the Covid-19 pandemic first began Vietnamese are taking more control of their health and finance, driving greater interest in fitness and well-being along with insurance and retirement planning. — Photo courtesy of Manulife HCM CITY — A year on since the Covid-19 pandemic first began Vietnamese are taking more control of their health and finance, driving greater interest in fitness and well-being along with insurance and retirement planning, as Asia looks to the longer-term impact of the disease, according to new research from Manulife. The latest version of the ‘Manulife Asia Care Survey’ takes a closer look into customers’ concerns, priorities and aspirations, polling 4,000 people across the region who either own insurance or intend to buy it in the next six months, including around 520 in Việt Nam. Nearly all (95 per cent) of those who worry most about Covid have made an effort on a personal level to improve their overall health, mostly through more regular exercise (58 per cent) and improved diet (54 per cent). In Việt Nam, all the respondents said they had taken action to help them manage Covid, with 72 per cent saying this included doing more regular exercise. More people in Hà Nội (85 per cent) do more regular exercise than in HCM City (73 per cent). Almost everyone is self-monitoring health, and Vietnamese pay the most attention to the number of steps walked (44 per cent) among the four emerging markets covered in the survey, against a regional average of 38 per cent. Three out of five (60 per cent) of Vietnamese also own fitness wearables, well above the regional average of 46 per cent. A large majority of Vietnamese (79 per cent) also said retirement planning has become more important since Covid-19 started, below the Philippines (90 per cent), Indonesia (88 per cent) and Malaysia (83 per cent) but higher than all the developed markets. The regional average is 73 per cent. This high level of interest in …
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Young Vietnamese on the verge of becoming ‘lost generation’ amid pandemic
Nguyen Thanh Tung, 22, graduated from university in June 2020, and was thrilled to enter a new stage in life. But reality turned out to be harsher than he thought as he spent four months looking for a job in Hanoi and HCMC only to be repeatedly told "they will contact me when the Covid-19 pandemic is contained." He then decided to apply for a graduate course in the U.S. and was admitted, but the university has canceled on-campus classes meaning Tung cannot leave. "It is like someone has pressed the pause button on my life, and I do not know how to find my play button amid this pandemic." Millions of other young people share his plight as colleges are closed, jobs are hard to find and mental and financial issues grow. A man wears a protective mask as he drives past a banner promoting prevention against the Covid-19 pandemic in Hanoi, Vietnam July 31, 2020. Photo by Reuters/Kham. Many students have been unable to cope with virtual classes and the hiatus in extracurricular activities. "Sometimes I cannot keep track of the lessons, or just get bored of sitting in front of the computer for hours, and so feel like I have failed to prepare well enough for my final exams," Nguyen Ba Nghia, a sophomore at the Hanoi University of Science and Technology, said. Many young people have also been severely affected by the job market slump . The International Labor Organization (ILO) said last year the youth unemployment rate in Vietnam was 10.8 percent, compared to 6.9 percent in 2019. It defined youths as workers aged 15 to 24. In the third quarter the youth unemployment rate was 7.24 percent, 4.2 times the rate among people aged over 25. On Facebook groups for headhunters and applicants, many people, mostly those embarking on a career, complain about how difficult it is to find a job. "I spent five months looking for a job and got an internship, and then they told me they will not sign a contract because they want to cut their spending amid …
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