ASEAN's senior officials to meet on environment

HA NOI — ASEAN senior environment officials will hold their 21st meeting (ASOEN 21) in Ha Noi from August 27, alongside the East Asian Senior Officials' meeting and the ASEAN Exhibition on Biodiversity.

About 100-150 delegates from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and dialogue partners, including Japan, China, New Zealand, Australia and India, will attend the meeting.

At ASOEN 21, officials will evaluate the work of ASEAN in managing the maritime environment, nature preservation, bio-diversity, building environmentally sustainable cities, water-resource management and environmental education and training.

Officials will also discuss the ASEAN Transboundary Haze Pollution Accord and climate change. In addition, delegates will assess the effectiveness of collaborative projects between ASEAN and dialogue partners.

Officials at the East Asian Senior Officials' meeting will look into various programmes such as the "Cities, Resource Efficiency, and the 3R Policy (Reduce, recycle, reuse); "Cities and Biodiversity"; "Introduction of Low Carbon Cities in East Asia: Challenges and Opportunities"; and "Cities' Resilience to Climate Change and Government Management."

The ASEAN exhibition on biodiversity (a Vietnamese initiative) has two main themes – nature preservation and biodiversity. There will be exhibits from 28 ASEAN heritage parks, 32 national parks, seven biosphere reserve centres and a number of Vietnamese natural reserve centres. — VNS