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A Developing Ideas series.

FOCUS ON VIETNAM: Vietnam's new war in the rainforest

The majority of Vietnam's 73 million people is under the age of 25, with little or no memory of the war. But the land itself remembers, as it still bears the scars of environmental degradation from years of fighting. With the government more determined than ever to join the ranks of Asia's 'economic tigers', a small but vociferous minority - including a born-again-green army general and a 29-year-old professor - is taking on the challenge of protecting what little forest remains. It's a daunting task.

Tourists in the former Demilitarized Zone are shocked by the scorched and barren wasteland which still separates northern and southern Vietnam. With 60% of the forest cover destroyed by the years of war, and over half of what survived plundered by human activity, it's difficult to imagine how densely forested this country once was, before people took up arms against each other and the environment.

"If the same rate of deforestation were to continue in the future, there would be completely no forest cover left by the year 2020," predicts Roy Morey of the United Nations Development Programme. He sees the siege on the forests as the most pressing environmental issue, and one which will only intensify with the rapid onset of industrialization.

It's a bitter irony, considering the primary peace-time cause of forest degradation has been chronic poverty. Rural populations averaging 200 people per square kilometre and incomes of less than US$240 per year have driven villagers to raid trees as a source of fuelwood and building materials. Food shortages for up to six months each year remain the norm in rural areas. Meanwhile, a never-ending merry-go-round of droughts, floods and typhoons only adds to the losses, leaving locals, wildlife and land without natural protection.

In interior provinces like Dac Lac - where coffee production once ranked fifth in the world - drought is expected to cause widespread shortfalls in the next year. Phan Quoc Sung, director of the National Coffee Research Institute, blames the felling of moisture-storing trees. Since doi moi, the switch to a market economy in the late 1980s, a wave of migrants has swept inland to eke out a meager living from illegal logging.

The government has tried prosecuting amateur loggers, to no avail. "Fining illegal loggers just makes criminals of the poor, and doesn't address the roots of poverty," explains Bardolf Paul, a Canadian forester working with the Ministry of Forestry.

The wood-smuggling rings don't seem deterred by the new penalties. In April, a top commune official in the Ha Tinh province was threatened when he tried to stop a gang of petty loggers. The robbers blocked a river with their boats and made off with a 35-cubic metre booty of wood. In the first three months of this year, more than 200 similar cases were reported in north-western Vietnam alone, where black market timber merchants provide an incentive and means of distribution, often across the border to China.

It's not just the poor who are pillaging the forests. Trees are also giving way to government-approved golf courses, with at least seven new resorts in the works across the country. Wealthy putters, it seems, would rather pay a little more to use the greens rather than conserve them.

Another solution--to develop an economic alternative to ransacking forests - is currently being developed at Hanoi University. Professor Tran Van On is the first San Chay tribe member to pursue post-graduate studies at this institution. "Both my grandfathers were traditional healers," he says, having spent his childhood combing the upland forests of Bac Thai province with them. Their tutelage fueled his desire to bring herbal medicine out of the rain forest and into the academy, with the combined academic pursuit of pharmacy and botany.

The young professor is currently overseeing a pilot project to identify, catalogue, reproduce and distribute medicinal herbs indigenous to Vietnam's forests, before they disappear forever. To further his goal to provide ethnic peoples with better - and legal - access to the lucrative market for herbal medicine, he has set up greenhouses for his research at Ba Vi National Park and at the University. He hopes the work will finally validate the national importance of biodiversity and cultural diversity beyond colourful costumed photo opportunities for the burgeoning 'eco-tourism' industry. The Chinese market for herbal medicine looks especially promising, he says.

With the forests providing a home to many unique species of flora and fauna - a disturbing proportion of which already sit on endangered species lists, the urgency of Dr. Tran's efforts is indisputable. Whether it's Vietnam , Canada or Brazil, it seems, the issue of how best to protect unique plants and peoples remains anything but clear-cut.