What brings you to this career path?
I did not have much concern on environmental issues when I first took my bachelor’s degrees on business management and law but participating in a variety of volunteer work at university had been gradually building up my notion and interest in the concept of sustainable development. As such, not so long after graduation, I worked at a non-governmental organization in a project which focused on sustainable economic development, agriculture and community-based disaster risk management (CBDRM) in Vinh Long Province.
The Winter-Spring of 2015-2016 was a tough time for people in my project areas when they unexpectedly encountered the highest level of salinity intrusion that has ever occurred. The farmers told me their first recognition of salinity intrusion was in the taste of their regular cup of coffee, then followed the dry death of paddy fields and fruit orchards.
At that point, I started to get a better sense of the impact of environmental change and its connection to agriculture-based livelihood which is extremely susceptible to the climate. Such proximity to the grassroots and their problems has created a deep connection between me and the environmental issues of the Mekong Delta and motivated me to delve into the environment and development sphere.
What is your main research/work?
Before 2019, I worked mainly as a project coordinator and frequently involved in research on rice farming and salinity intrusion as data collection lead. The main characteristics of my role were planning, monitoring, trouble-shooting and compiling primary data. I worked at Tra Vinh University to support in a World Bank-funded project where we tested the feasibility of applying Internet of Thing (IoT) devices in Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) to improve water use efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emission in rice cultivation. There, I experienced working in an interdisciplinary environment where we tried to solve environmental issues from a technological approach and I involved in a complete process of research and development of a new device, transferring, monitoring, trouble-shooting and observing how the end-users accept and adopt novel technique and technology.
Since 2019, I attended MSc in Climate Change and Development at the University of Reading (UK). The programme advanced me with the natural and social science of climate change and empirical experience on quantitative and qualitative research methods. My focus was climate services for rice farmers in a coastal province of the Mekong Delta who are confronting more and more severe salinity intrusion over years in the dry season.
How capable are the Mekong citizens in dealing with the water problems?
I’ve undertaken hundreds of interviews with the rural people in the Mekong throughout my career, whether short or long, quantitative or qualitative. They might complain about their loss, but it was also easy to recognize some light in their stories. In Vietnam, we usually see Mekong Delta people as inherently generous and optimistic. Some laughed when they told me the story of salty coffee or the clearing of their rambutan orchard due to the intrusion of saline water a year after the event. It was absolutely not a happy experience but the attitude when people deal with the problems is important.
I don’t like how farmers are, a lot of times, framed as hopeless and resigned . I think they are knowledgeable and skillful in what they are doing. They grow our food!
Farmers are also resilient and proactive in front of difficulties, take for example, the diverse, ingeneous ways people store water: using small and big jars, a PVC bag with 15m3 storage capacity or covering the bottom of the pond with HDPE plastic. Some adopted drip irrigation for fruit orchards and Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) technique for rice paddy. Some proactively monitored the saline concentration in irrigation water and looked for saline tolerant varieties. However, their solutions are not necessarily sustainable, that is why they need more external support, including scientific knowledge, reliable weather/climate forecast and good policy.
What do you think about the trade-off between development and environmental sustainability, do developing countries need to sacrifice the environment to escape poverty?
I don’t think there is inherently such a trade-off. Defining “development” is not straightforward, economic growth is what people usually think about when they think about “development”, however, it is so much more than that.
Development can be reflected through the societies’ health, education, distribution equality, happiness, etc. Sustaining a liveable environment is essential to maintain and improve these components of development. Ultimately, as human beings, we all rely on natural resources and this one and only shared Earth to survive.
A trade-off occurs when we act for the well-being of a certain group, when the people who cause environmental degradation are not the ones who bear the consequences, who can be our future generation.
At this moment, we are lucky that scientists have helped us to know for certain whether something we did is good and bad for the environment. We now know our planetary boundaries. We need to bring back the harmonizing relationship with the Earth. I like how Kate Raworth – the writer of the book Doughnut Economics - put it, we need to thrive instead of growing. I keep the hope that Vietnam and other developing countries can find a way to do it – develop but not at the price of the environment.
So, what are you specifically working on at AMPERES?
As a mission-driven enterprise, AMPERES seeks to build evidence bases to support informed development decisions, including a research programme on the Mekong system to study its changes due to human drivers and look for the solutions to deal with the consequences as well as recover its healthy ecosystem. I am so excited and honoured to be involved in this programme as a research analyst where I will not only continue to work on the adaptive capacity of the Mekong Delta but also examine the Mekong issues in a bigger picture of the whole Mekong region and try to deal with the root causes of the problem.
Last question, please name two books that you think every one should read to understand the Mekong Delta?
I would say Đất Rừng Phương Nam (The Southern land) by Đoàn Giỏi, it is about people and the fertile nature of Delta during 1940s and any books written by Nguyen Ngoc Tu who writes about the Delta in recent times.
I also recommend the movie Mùa Len Trâu (The buffalo boy, Le Gardien des Buffles) (2004). which is available in English, you can even watch it on Vietnam Airlines