United Nations Radio

Nguyen Thi Lanh

Vietnam's economy is finally thriving after decades of war, but a new and insidious enemy - global warming - is hitting this Southeast Asian country, with deadly force. And its greatest victims are women. Matthew Graham has the story.

Thuc: Climate change already impact Vietnam, very strong impact to Vietnam.

Dr. Tran Thuc, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Vietnam

Thuc: More typhoons with high intensity have occurred during the last few years. Every year many, many people has been killed by natural disaster.

Campbell: Women are certainly bearing the disproportionate burden of climate change.

NARR: That's Bruce Campbell, UN Population Fund's representative for Vietnam talking about the heavy burden Vietnamese women are now facing due to climate change. Vietnam's weather has become wildly unpredictable with higher intensity typhoons occurring during the last few years. Scientists believe that these disasters are often caused far to the north of Vietnam, where global warming is melting glaciers, resulting in rising sea levels along Vietnam's three thousand five hundred kilometre coastline. Low-lying agricultural areas like Quang Tri province are experiencing unprecedented flooding.

Lanh: Everything we had, the flood destroyed. The rice was destroyed. The pigs died. The ducks and the chickens died, all of them. Everything we had.

Phi: We are affected because the crops are not enough to feed the family.

NARR: Fifty-year old Lanh Nguyen and her husband Phi are farmers. Married for thirty years, they have two children at home. They say climate change has transformed their lives.

Phi Nguyen: This harvest season sometimes the rice stalks did not open. That's because the climate is too dry.

NARR: The lack of water caused by global warming also plagues farmers. In the past fifty years, Vietnam's average temperature has climbed one half a degree Celsius. That seemingly small change causes big weather extremes: more floods in the rainy season and severe droughts in the dry season. Crops often don't survive.

Phi: If I stay home, there wouldn't be any money to pay for the children to go to school or for household expenses."

NARR: This makes Lanh's life extremely difficult. No longer able to count on his crops, Phi leaves his home for two months a year to work in construction. Phi's long absences are hard on his wife, Lanh. All the chores and responsibilities fall on her shoulders.

Lanh: When he's not home, for me to farm the rice field on my own is terribly difficult. I'm out working all the time.

NARR: Farmers are not the only ones feeling the burden of erratic weather. Fishermen too have been affected. More intense storms means less time at sea. So Luy spends many hours a day idle. It is left to his wife, 41-year-old Thien Phan, to make up the shortfall in the family's budget.

Thien: If I don't work, how will I feed my children?

NARR: Thien and her 70-year-old mother sell homemade fish sauce at the market, where so many of Quang Tri's women earn some extra cash. But, Thien says, her customers are suffering and have less money to spend.

Thien: With the recent floods, the rice was destroyed. The other families eat less and so we also make less.

NARR: Her income is down to half of what it once was, so she, like Lanh, is forced to work morning to night while caring for her three children, a 4 year old daughter, and two sons, one 12, the other 16.

Thien: I work all day. Work very hard all day. I go from one task to another. There's hardly time to rest.

NARR: While everyone in Quang Tri is affected by hotter, more unpredictable weather, it is clear who bears the greatest burden.

Lanh: Of course women are more affected than men. It's miserable. We have to worry about everything.

PRES: That was 50 year old Lanh, a Vietnamese farmer explaining how climate change is affecting their world.

Producer: Matthew Graham

(duration: 4'01")