SUMMARY

Geoheritage and geopark potential in the coastal zone and islands of Việt Nam: Case studies in Quảng Ninh Province and Hải Phòng City

Trần Tân Văn, Phạm Khả Tùy, Đàm Ngọc, Lương Thị Tuất,
Nguyễn Đại Trung, Hồ Tiến Chung, Đoàn Thế Anh

The coastal line of Việt Nam extends more than 3,200 km with hundreds of bays, estuaries, thousands of big and small islands, looking out over 1.2 million km² of marine territory and continental shelf of national sovereign and judge rights, which promise an enormous potential on numerous types of natural marine resources and, especially, potential on geological resources (sea water, wetlands, oil and gas, groundwater, solid mineral resources, etc.). Many types of resources have been exploited and utilized, especially in the recent period, when the whole country is doing best to implement the "Strategy for Vietnamese Sea Territory up to the 2020 year", issued by our Party and Government and is trying with the aim of that up to the year of 2010, the sea economy will contribute 53-55% of GDP and 55-60% of the national export turnover.

Although having been exploited and utilized at a certain level, some other types of geological resources in the coastal zone and islands of Việt Nam are not subjected to adequate awareness, survey and assessment, from which an orientation of their rational and sustainable exploitation and usage can be set up. The Hạ Long Bay can be taken as a typical example, although twice recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage based on its landscape and geological-geomorphological criteria, perhaps only a few of geoscientists who can know clearly the values of the landscape and geology-geomorphology of the Hạ Long Bay and where they are concretely expressed. Perhaps, this fact is not so surprising when even on over the world, the trend of rational preservation, exploitation and utilization of geological heritages as a type of rare and precious, non-removable geological resources in the form of establishing geoparks and encouraging the development of geological tourism becomes only animated in the ten recent years. Vietnamese geoscientists have been early recognizing the problem on geological heritages and geoparks. Even it is still not systematical, the survey and assessment on the potential of those geological sources could have some initial achievements. Combining some available knowledges, this paper presents briefly some concepts and activities related to geological heritages and geoparks in the world and in Việt Nam, as well as their potential of the coastal zone and islands of Việt Nam.

Người biên tập: Nguyễn Đại Trung.