The southern province of Binh Duong has become the first and only one in Vietnam to be named a Smart21 community for 2019 by the New York-based Intelligent Community Forum (ICF).

 Lawmakers have decided to raise the environmental tax on a number of commodities from January 1, 2019.

 The Ministry of Finance has asked the Ministry of Transport not to grant business licences to shipping lines that transport scrap that includes waste and pollutants to Viet Nam.

 Nha Trang Bay is facing serious pollution caused by a drain from a surrounding residential area.

 While wastewater is threatening the environment in Hanoi, a wastewater treatment facility has been abandoned for a decade in Thanh Tri District.

 Vietnam is forecast to collect approximately 2.5 trillion VND (106.4 million USD) from payments of forest environmental services in 2018, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Ha Cong Tuan has said.

 A range of decades-old trees in a forest managed by the two central provinces of Quang Tri and Thua Thien-Hue have been illegally logged. 

 The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and development partners launched the project “For a World Without Waste” in Hanoi on October 17. 

 The government of the central province of Thua Thien-Hue on October 13 held a conference to gather opinions on a zoning plan to construct the Bach Ma ecological resort complex, coupled with two cable-car systems on the Bach Ma Range.

Japan’s Nikken Sekkei Civil Engineering Ltd. (NSC) won the first prize at an international contest for the planning design with a scale of 1/5000 in Can Gio district.

 The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment launched a campaign on October 12, calling for joint efforts in plastic waste prevention nationwide, in response to the 2018 “Make the world cleaner” campaign.

 A group of young people from Hanoi have been travelling around the country, exchanging books for plastic waste to make eco-bricks, as they want to join the global efforts to reduce plastic waste.

 The negative effects of climate change and rising sea levels along the central coastal provinces of Vietnam requires the efforts of both local authorities and businesses in minimising losses.

 Authorities in the southern province of Binh Phuoc have requested an urgent investigation into a serious illegal logging in the locality.

 The Danang government has taken multiple steps to tackle the severe pollution at the Khanh Son landfill, the largest in the city, according to the municipal Department of Information and Communications.

 Vietnam has actively implemented international commitments andmade efforts to cope with climate change.

Some four milllion tons of untreated  coal ash discharged from Vinh Tan 2 thermal power plant in Tuy Phong District, Binh Thuan Province, is causing serious concern among provincial authorities.

 Cast iron slag is still considered solid waste to be treated and buried in Vietnam.

 A plan to revive the Kim Nguu River which is one of the worst polluted in Hanoi has attracted lots of attention from the public.

 Customs officers at Noi Bai International Airport have seized nearly a tonne of elephant tusks, ivory products and pangolin scales hidden inside cargo packages.