The southern province of Kien Giang, which has around 200km ofcoastline, is facing serious erosion, which has threatened the lives ofhundreds of local households.

The erosion isparticularly serious in An Bien and An Minh districts, where 25km of thetotal 75km of coastline have been eroded.

As aconsequence, 12 local households have lost their entire contractedforest areas to the sea, while hundreds of others have lost some land.

The head of Phat Dat Village in An Minh District TranVan Suong said local residents have signed contracts to take care offorests on 300ha, but more than 200 ha have been eroded away, and theremaining 100ha are also under threat of being washed away.

According to Suong, the distance from protective forests to sea hasreduced from over 1km 10 years ago to around 300-500m at present.

The southern province has a 212-km sea dyke system stretching from Mui Nai (Ha Tien town) to Tieu Dua (An Minh district).

It owns around 8,700 hectares of land dedicated to coastal protectiveforests. However, only 2,950 hectares are currently covered in trees.

Erosion occurs most seriously in September and October, directly affect the livelihoods of locals.

According to the provincial Department of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment, Kien Giang will require about 5.34 trillion VND (245.6million USD) for afforestation, and build a drainage system and upgradesea dykes in order to prevent erosion and respond to climate change andsea level rising during 2015-2020 and beyond 2020.

Anumber of investment projects, including upgrades to the 71km XeoRo-Tieu Dua sea dyke and the construction of 21 out of the 27 drainageworks along the sea dyke system are awaiting funding.-VNA