Craft Village Development and Environmental Protection Challenges in the Red River Delta of Vietnam

This paper examines and assesses craft village development and challenges in the environmental management of craft villages in the Red River Delta region of Vietnam. This is the area where most of the craft villages of the country are concentrated. They contribute to creating jobs, increasing incomes for rural people, contributing to the successful implementation of the goal of hunger eradication and poverty reduction. However, this rapid development also creates many environmental consequences for rural areas. From the data published by state agencies and case studies in some craft villages in the Red River Delta, this article shows that economic development, rural urbanization create dynamism force for enterprises, households in craft villages to expand production, but also leads to fierce market competition between craft villages as well as environmental pollution. Although Vietnam has implemented many environmental protection policies, pollution in craft villages is still serious. Therefore, in order to ensure the handicraft village environment, research shows that it is necessary to promote supervision and monitoring of the implementation of environmental protection measures by businesses and households, in addition to building a policy of reasonably economic development for this area.