Meeting on environmental protection in Hanoi
HSF and MONRE Host Workshop on Technology-Based Control Strategies for Managing Pollution

A group discussion taking place.

HSF

Over the course of two days between the 5^th to 6^th of September, the HSF and the Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) have hosted a workshop on promoting technology-based control strategies for managing pollution levels, especially air and water pollution. In addition to HSF and MONRE, those who have attended included two experts each from the US Environmental Protection Agency and the German Federal Environment Agency and concerned parties and individuals.

The main theme behind the workshop was introducing the principle of best available technologies/techniques (BAT) in mitigating the effects of pollution and how it can be applied to environmental law at the local level and possibly the national level.

Mr. Pham Tuan Hung and Dr. Axel Neubert on the first day of the workshop.

HSF

The local and international partners of the foundation have given their lectures on the prevailing philosophy behind BAT as well as its current application in European and American environmental law. In between these lectures there were group discussions among attendees concerning the practicality of BAT, the challenges that come with tackling water and air pollution and the solutions to these challenges, as well as potential amendments to Vietnamese environmental law that implement the principles of BAT. There were also Q&A sessions in which the attendees can ask questions pertaining to the topics that were being discussed.

In the end, the workshop managed to foster highly productive discussions on the concept of best available techniques and its potential application to current national environmental law in Vietnam. There was also a fruitful exchange of ideas, seeing how BAT is a relatively unknown concept in Vietnam and MONRE has shown its willingness to adopt it to mitigate pollution levels in the air and water supply.