Mart Stewart co-organizes conference at Can Tho University in Vietnam

Mart Stewart (History) co-organized, with the College of the Environment at Can Tho University in Vietnam and the Global Research Institute at the University of North Carolina, a three-day conference and workshop titled "Environmental Change, Agricultural Sustainability, and Economic Development in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam." The converence convened at Can Tho University March 25 to 27.

Participants included representatives from the Centre for Marine Life Conservation and Community Development and the École Française d’Extrême-Orient in Ha Noi; the Institute of Oceanography in Nha Trang; the Institute of Sustainability in Ho Chi Minh City; the Delta Research And Global Observation Network/DRAGON Institute and the Mekong Development Research Institute at Can Tho University, the Asia Disaster Preparedness Center and the World Fish Center in Phnom Penh; the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines; and the Swiss Association for International Cooperation. Representatives also attended from the University of Florence, the United Nations University/Bonn, Can Tho University, and several other universities in Vietnam, the United States, Australia, and Thailand. Several Delta rice and shrimp farmers and students and researchers from Can Tho University and from the SIT Delta Ecology and Resource Management Study Abroad Program also participated.

The Mekong Delta is just a few meters above sea level, so it will be especially vulnerable to sea level rise and increased salinity incursions due to global climate change. Upriver construction of dams and water-diverting hydraulic works will also change Mekong Delta environments. It is one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world, as well as the home to 25 million people. Problems caused by changes in waterflow in the Mekong as well as by the modernization of economies along the Mekong have made the delta economy an especially unstable one. The conference included papers that explained delta environments and agriculture as well as proposed potential human responses to environmental – especially climate – change in the delta.

At the conference, Stewart also presented a paper (with Peter Coclanis) titled "Precarious Paddies: Rice Farming and Rice History in the Mekong Delta."