At the fourth meeting of the Ha Long Bay-Cat Ba Alliance Leadership Committee (Photo: VNA)
The meeting is under the framework of the Ha Long-Cat Ba Alliance Initiative Project, which is funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
In January, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism sent information on extended heritage site to the UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre.
Hai Phong provincial People’s Committee will prepare the renomination dossier and submit it to the Ministry for submission to UNESCO in September. The final dossier will be filed on February 1, 2018.
At the meeting, the delegates also focused on measures to enhance management of environmental protection at the heritage site in the new situation.
In addition, representatives of UNESCO, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the MoCST and leaders of Quang Ninh provincial and Hai Phong municipal People’s Committees, as well as relevant agencies and members of the Ha Long Bay-Cat Ba Alliance, discussed the plans for the implementation of its second phase (2017-2019).
Accordingly, USAID will continue to provide fund for IUCN in order to enhance the participation of enterprises to the alliance, contributing to promoting preservation and protection activities for the heritage; support the State issue policies and regulations related to these activities. The agency will also support the renomination of extended Ha Long Bay Natural World Heritage Site, improving the prestige of Viet Nam in international arena.
Initiated in 2014, the initiative aimed to build partnerships between the Vietnamese state, enterprises and local communities in order to promote environmental preservation and protection in Ha Long Bay and Cat Ba archipelago.
In 2015, the alliance’s leadership committee was formed to enhance the participation of enterprises, address a number of environmental issues related to yacht companies, provide technical assistance to UNESCO in management of Ha Long Bay, and give proposals of extending the world natural heritage site, comprising Cat Ba archipelago.
During the first phase of the project, through the USAID, the US Government provided finance to Ha Long – Cat Ba alliance with two grants to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Centre for Marine life Conservation and Community Development (MCD), a non-governmental organisation in Viet Nam.