Letter contest launched to engage youths in efforts to save bears
The Education for Nature – Vietnam (ENV), on the occasion of Vietnam Bear Day (November 26), launched a letter writing contest with the aim of engaging young people in bear protection efforts.
Hanoi (VNA) – The Education for Nature –Vietnam (ENV), on the occasion of Vietnam Bear Day (November 26), launched aletter writing contest with the aim of engaging young people in bear protectionefforts.
The contest, which is open to all youths, aged between 11and 17 years old, asks contestants to write letters to bears owners, persuadingthem to voluntarily hand over their captive bears to rescue centres. The lettermust be handwritten and not exceed 500 words. Each participant can submit morethan one entry to the administrator board of his school, which in turn willselect a maximum of 10 outstanding letters to send to ENV.
The deadline is before March 15, 2019. Winners of thecompetition will be announced and awarded in September the same year.
ENV Deputy Director Nguyen Phuong Dung said it is time toexert more pressure on bear owners, forcing them to give up bear captivity.
The contest provides a venue for the community to sharetheir thoughts and feeling thus contributing to ending the practice, and spreadthe message to the public, she added.
In Vietnam, bears had been kept to extract bile, a digestivefluid used in traditional Eastern medicine, until the 1990s. Bear bile farmingwas outlawed in 1992 but owners were not forced to give up the bears they held,only serving to prolong the harmful practice.
According to ENV, the number of bears in captivity sharplydeclined between 2005 and October 2018 from 4,300 to below 800. Its survey alsoshowed that bile demand dropped by over 60 percent between 2009 and 2014.
In 2017, the government of Vietnam agreed a plan with thenon-profit group Animals Asia to shut down all bear farms in the country andmove all remaining captive bears to sanctuaries.-VNA
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Poster of the contest (Source: thiennhien.org) 
