The construction of a huge residential complex on Ha Long Bay is sparking uproar in Vietnam, where the impact of human activity on this UNESCO World Heritage site is a cause for concern.
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The bay is world famous for its gigantic limestone islands that plunge into the turquoise waters. With more than seven million visitors last year, it is one of Vietnam’s most popular travel destinations.
The nearby coast and city are already heavily developed, but on Sunday state media published photos of a huge construction site in Bai Tu Long Bay, which borders Ha Long Bay.
According to the Tien Phong newspaper, the project by the Do Gia capital group will occupy an area of 380,000 m2, or 52 football fields, and will house a residential and hotel complex.
The newspaper said the site was within Halong Bay’s “buffer zone,” which UNESCO says provides additional protection for a world heritage site.
Once completed, the complex will include 451 villas and houses, several seven-story hotels, and service and commercial areas.
“The boundaries of Ha Long Bay have been seriously violated,” Truong Quoc Binh, former deputy director of the Ministry of Culture’s Heritage Department, was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
In a Facebook message that received thousands of comments and shares, Nguyen Xuan Dien, a famous historian, described the project as a “direct threat” to the site.
“Limestone karsts have become a plaything for the nouveau riche,” he denounced.
“The sea and its sand are being exploited. Beautiful places are auctioned off. We kill animals, we kill everything,” a well-known environmental activist, Trang Nguyen, wrote on Facebook.
Facing the outcry, authorities in Quang Ninh (North) province, where the site is located, on Monday first ordered an immediate review of the project before requesting a halt to work and assuring that an investigation would be carried out in the area beforehand November 10th.
The plans were officially approved in 2021.
The rapid growth of Ha Long city, which now houses a cable car, an amusement park, luxury hotels and thousands of new housing units, has severely damaged the bay’s ecosystem.
Conservationists estimate that there were originally around 234 species of coral in the bay, but that number has now fallen by half.
Human waste and plastic waste also pose a major problem.
UNESCO’s Vietnam office and the Halong Bay board did not immediately respond to AFP’s requests for comment.
State media has recently reported on several other construction projects that threaten protected areas across Vietnam.