Viet Nam's "Robinson Crusoe"

A little over ten years ago, Luong Kim Loan, a 63 year-old Vietnamese woman began a challenging adventure after her son found a large area of land available for cultivation on nearby Lom Bo Island. Loan was inspired by the remains of fruit orchards abandoned on the island during the war and decided to start a fruit cultivation project on the land. She quit her job and applied to the regional government for permission and a grant to fund the project. Some of the money was used to build a transport ship and the remainder paid for litchi seeds. Unfortunately Loan could not convince anyone from her family or friends to work with her on the project, so, although initially very lonely she pushed on by herself.

Just a little over ten years later, the island is covered with valuable fruit trees. Friends visit more frequently and four workers on the island help care for the orchard, which now produces 4-5 tonnes of litchis every year.
Link:
Lone woman plants trees on Bay isle from Viet Nam News

Posted by Eric La Fountaine at 1:11 PM on February 8, 2006

Want to talk about this weblog entry? As of August 22, 2006, all new entries and most older entries are cross-posted to the UBC Botanical Garden Discussion Forums for discussion (you might need to use the search function to find the thread you are looking for).

This is an effort to reduce the amount of time spent dealing with spam (the forums are very good at stopping spam, the weblog commenting system is not so good).

Older entries already containing comments remain open for discussion.