VNExpress-Aug 7
Environmentalists are raising alarms as locals in northern Vietnam have been flocking to hunt earthworms by electrocuting the soil. For around a month now, farm owners in the northern provinces of Hoa Binh, Son La, Tuyen Quang, Bac Giang have reported an increase in people catching earthworms on their land by shocking the ground with electricity. The earthworm electrocution weapon consists of two sharp rods connected to a battery. After the iron rods are injected into the ground, worms are forced to writhe out of the ground to escape electrocution. Such a device could be easily bought online from China. After catching the worms, people sell them to facilities where the worms are dried and later sold to traders, who then export them to China via illegal paths. Van Thinh, a resident in Bac Giang Province, said shocking earthworms has increasingly become a popular “job” in his village and that facilities used to dry the worms can be “easily found anywhere” in the village.
The worms will then be processed, with all of their organs removed and what’s left will be dried.”On average, around 13 kg of live worms would produce 1 kg of dried worms. We sell them to China at the price of VND600,000-700,000 per kilo,” a trader who wants to stay unnamed said. This person admitted to “have no idea what Chinese buyers get the dried worms for.” Hung, owner of a worm-drying facility in Bac Ninh Province, which borders Hanoi, said in his village of 700 families, there are around 600 devices for electrocuting worms. “They mostly catch the worms in public flower gardens, normally from 9 p.m. to 4-5 a.m. No one bans them from doing so and no one cares.” In a report published last June, South China Morning Post said in dried form, earthworms are known as “dry-soil dragon” and are used in traditional medicine in China. China itself is facing “an extinction-level ecological disaster due to a huge rise in the electrocution of earthworms in the soil,” said the report. In Vietnam, there are currently no rules preventing people from catching worms by electrocution. Read more at: https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/environment/earthworm-electrocution-is-destroying-the-environment-for-china-trade-4638839.html
