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The HCM City – Long Thành – Dầu Giây Expressway is expected to be widened to 10-12 lanes. The Ministry of Transport has urged localities in the southeast region to improve transport infrastructure over the next five years. — Photo courtesy of Đồng Nai Department of Transport

HCM CITY — The Ministry of Transport has urged localities in the southeast region to speed up major transport projects by diversifying the sources of capital over the next five years.

Speaking at a recent online meeting, Nguyễn Văn Thể, Minister of Transport, said: “A lack of regional connectivity and overloaded roads at major gateways remains an issue in the region.”

Thể has urged localities in the region to speed up implementation of major projects in the region in the 2021-2025 period, with priority given to the expansion of HCM City – Long Thành – Dầu Giây expressway, and construction of Bến Lức – Long Thành expressway, Biên Hòa – Vũng Tàu expressway, HCM City – Mộc Bài, and Ring Roads 2 and 3.

Other projects include construction of the Long Thành – Thủ Thiêm light railway connecting HCM City to the new Long Thành airport, and the expansion of Provincial Road 25C from HCM City to Đồng Nai Province.

Recently, PM Nguyễn Xuân Phúc approved the Ministry of Transport’s proposal to give HCM City the authority to approve investment decisions for the HCM City-Mộc Bài Expressway.

The 53.5km-long expressway will link Ring Road No 3 in HCM City’s Hóc Môn District with Mộc Bài International Border Gate between Việt Nam and Cambodia in Tây Ninh Province.

The expressway project will be divided into two investment phases. Its total capital is estimated at nearly VNĐ13.6 trillion (US$586.8 million), including cost for site clearance sourced from the State budget.

The first stage will cost VNĐ10.7 trillion (($461.7 million) under a Public-Private Partnership investment.

Construction is expected to be completed by 2025 with at least four lanes, and will be expanded to six or eight lanes by 2045.

The HCM City Department of Transport has asked the Ministry of Planning and Investment to allocate VNĐ3.281 trillion in the 2021-2025 period to widen the HCM City – Long Thành – Dầu Giây Expressway and its surrounding roads.

Trần Văn Thi, director of the Mỹ Thuận Project Management Board, said that expansion of the expressway was urgently needed to ease overloading, especially when the Long Thành international airport opens at the end of 2025.

He said that a 24km section of the expressway, connecting HCM City with Long Thành international airport, should be implemented first.

He also asked the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Planning and Investment to allocate medium-term capital sources for the 2021-2025 period with priority given to the use of state budget or from official development assistance (ODA).

The southeast region, which accounts for 40 per cent of the country’s total budget revenue and 38 per cent GDP, is the focal economic region in Việt Nam, according to Thể.

It includes HCM City and Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu, Bình Dương, Bình Phước, Đồng Nai, and Tây Ninh provinces. However, the region’s transport structure is far below the needs of its economic and social growth potential.

There are only two expressways in the region: the HCM City-Long Thành-Dầu Giây and HCM City-Trung Lương.

Road transport plays a key role in the region, serving about 80 per cent of all freight transport from the provinces in the region to HCM City, causing serious congestion on HCM City-Trung Lương Expressway and National Road 51.

The National Road 22 from HCM City to Tây Ninh Province has also become congested with the number of vehicles increasing by 8 per cent annually, according to the Ministry of Transport.

The Cái Mép – Thị Vải deep-water port in Bà Rịa – Vũng Tàu Province is the international gateway to the region. The port is one of more than 20 ports in the world that can be accessed by container ships of over 200,000 tonnes.

When the first phase of Long Thành international airport in Đồng Nai Province opens slated for 2025, a new hub of the aviation industry will be formed in the region.

Experts said the region should focus on investment in traffic infrastructure to enhance linkages between the port, the international airport and industrial parks in the region to boost socio-economic development. — VNS

Djưng with a herd of deer in Kon Ka Kinh National Park, Gia Lai Province. — Photo tienphong.vn

GIA LAI — Looking at the herd of deer being protected in Kon Ka Kinh National Park, Gia Lai Province, Djưng feels very happy.

Djưng from the Ba Na ethnic group in Đê Kjiêng Village, Ayun Commune, Mang Yang District, is now a ranger in the forest that he used to hunt in for a living for many years.

He was one of the best hunters in the village, which is located nearly 100km from Pleiku City.

Djưng said, in the past, it was not easy to travel from the village to the centre of the district, so local kids like him only went to the forest to catch birds and pick mushrooms.

As a kid who grew up hunting, he hunted with his brothers and uncles to catch gaurs, deer and wild boars.

That is why he knows every stream and every corner of the forest.

“I know the animal’s behaviour. I know when they go to stream to drink water, go for food and where they like to sleep. So it is not difficult to set traps to catch them,” Djưng told Tiền Phong (Vanguard) newspaper.

“If I caught a small animal like a rabbit, I brought it home to cook for my family. The big ones could be sold to buy rice.”

Now he has turned over a new leaf as he uses his hunting skills to protect animals and forest.

A few years ago, an animal expert came to Kon Ka Kinh National Park looking for gray-shanked douc langurs for an endangered species protection project.

At that time, Djưng became a tour guide to help him during his research in the forest.

Djưng said he knows how long the animal had been in the forest and where they sleep from the smell of the animal’s urine and faeces.

He helped the expert conduct valuable researche on gray-shanked douc langurs in Kon Ka Kinh National Park.

“The days in the forest with the expert were also the days I understood the value of the forest and animals thanks to his explanation,” said Djưng.

“After that, he invited me to Đà Nẵng to help him build a research and protective area for this species. The forest awakened my heart. But at that time I couldn’t give up hunting because I couldn’t find another job.”

In 2019, Djưng and Chưn, Djưng’s friend and another famous hunter in the village, were hired by the Centre for Environmental Education and Forest Environmental Services of Kon Ka Kinh National Park.

They were both assigned to serve ecotourism activities and find beautiful landscapes to help centre open new tours. They also share survival skills in the forest with tourists.

Wild animal traps that have been removed from Kon Ka Kinh National Park. — Photo tienphong.vn

Talking about his friend, Djưng said Chưn was a hunter but also a logger at that time.

To make a living, Chưn hunted animals and illegally cut down trees for sale.

“Once I saw young birds dead in a nest because their mother was shot or a pregnant deer thta had been killed. I loved them but I had to kill them and cut down trees for my family’s livelihood,” Chưn said.

According to A Mưm, another local hunter, for many generations, the lives of the local people have depended on the forest.

He inherited hunting skills when he was a child, so he used those skills to earn a living.

Trần Văn Thụ, director of the Centre for Rescue – Biological Conservation and Development in Kon Ka Kinh National Park, said in previous years, the centre’s officers had to work hard to find traps set by local hunters in the forest.

“Following hunters’ footprints, we can found dead animals and chopped down trees,” Thụ said.

But now, the local hunters’ awareness about the forest has changed.

A Mưn works for the Centre for Rescue – Biological Conservation and Development and uses his hunting skills to remove thousands of traps in Kon Ka Kinh forest to protect animals.

“Rescuing the trapped animals awakened me, helping me have a meaningful life,” A Mưn said.

Djưng and Chưn also help remove animal traps in the forest with A Mưn.

“Nobody wants to catch and kill animals. All of this is for a living. Now we are trying to explain and tell other people to stop hunting to protect the forest,” Djưng said. — VNS