The lead author James Allan from the University of Queensland urged that: “It is time for the global community to stand up and hold governments to account so that they take the conservation of natural World Heritage sites seriously.” The same problem happens to many natural sites in Vietnam due to the rapid development of hotels, resorts, cruises, and cable car for tourism purpose. While the economic benefit that tourism brings to Vietnam is undeniable, it also comes with many devastating consequences. Halong Bay – twice recognized as the World Heritage Site by UNESCO is now facing serious environment issues from the development of coal industry, daily living activities of local citizen and unstructured development of tourism. Every day, the bay receives thousands of tourists worldwide, the fleet of endless cruise ships comes back and forth from 2 main harbors of Halong Bay. The impact of tourism and economic development on Ha Long Bay has long caused concern among environmentalists.

Things can be changed

“The environment of Halong bay has been worsened comparing to its condition 10 years ago since we started Indochine Junk company”, Mr. Tran – Founder of Indochine Junk said. He also shared that the company has focused on sustainable tourism development since 2007 and will continue to invest more in protecting the environment of Halong Bay. Mrs. Nguyen – Director of Sale and Marketing of Ethnic Voyage said: “You cannot blind customers by your greenwashing marketing campaigns, they want to know and join your actions. It is time for companies take the environment issue seriously and carry out purposeful projects for the conservation of Halong Bay, otherwise, the companies themselves are the ones who will be affected the most from losing customers.” It becomes common that tourists come to Halong bay, instead of enjoying peaceful kayaking through the limestone terrain, they passionately sail and collect rubbish from the ocean. What is strange is that customers are more than happy joining this activity. Indochina Junk, a leading company in promoting sustainable tourism in Halong bay, is a very first company organizing a program called “For a green Halong Bay”, in which customers join with cruise members kayaking and collecting rubbish from the bay. The company also commits for every customer who books a tour, $3 is donated to sustainable programs. From Justine Rose & Chris Cheyette, who recently traveled to Halong bay: “We weren’t going to visit Halong Bay due to the issues we had read about with irresponsible tour operators, and the mounting piles of rubbish. Then Chris found your website and we took a risk that it was not greenwashing! “…”So it was a huge relieved to discover Indochina Junk IS really doing things differently”. In 2007 Indochine-Junk started Garbage collection project with supports from visitors and staff. – In 2014, more than 13,000 Kg rubbish was collected while more than 25,000 kg rubbish was collected in 2015 and 24638 kg rubbish was collected in 2016. More than 13,649 kg rubbish was collected in the first 9 months of 2017.