Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Vietnam's Danang starts small to adapt to climate change

Thin Lei Win in Reuters AlertNet: …[A]t the tip of a beach on the beautiful Son Tra peninsula, just a 15-minute drive from the centre of Vietnam's booming city of Danang, people are used to natural disasters.In September, typhoon Ketsana brought the biggest floods in decades with people saying ships appeared to be simply tossed onshore. In 2006 another powerful typhoon, Xangsane, devastated the area.

So when the Rockefeller Foundation, one of America's oldest private charities, was looking to fund small-scale projects as part of its $50 million climate change adaptation work in Asian cities, the fishermen knew what to ask for.

They wanted the winch to make it easier to drag their boats safely ashore on the wheeled trolleys when a storm strikes, said Nguyen Tri Dzung of Challenge to Change, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) working with communities facing problems from climate change.

Rockefeller funded half of the $50,000 cost which includes training the community, said the Foundation's managing director in Asia, Ashvin Dayal. The rest came from city authorities and local people. …Another pilot project, also costing around $50,000, involves restoring coastal forests and setting up a disaster warning system for 450 fishing boats, which were equipped with radios to receive weather forecasts and notify each other of incoming storms….

A street in Danang, Vietnam, shot by Webber

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