In May 2013 the HELCOM Secretariat received an unexpected email from Vietnam, asking for permission to translate the book “Planning the Bothnian Sea” to Vietnamese. The book, the final report of a HELCOM-led project on planning the future of the offshore Bothnian Sea, a part of northern Baltic Sea situated between Åland Islands and the Quark (Umeå-Vasa), had been released a year earlier. The initiative has been part of HELCOMs efforts to develop transboundary ecosystem based maritime spatial planning (MSP) in the region in cooperation with VASAB, another regional organization.Even if the book had already received international recognition for its substance and particularly for its design, most of the attention so far had been European. We were charmed by this sudden overseas interest and naturally replied positively.Five months later, in October 2013, we were quite astonished when we received an email with a complete Vietnamese version of the book. Every single word and graph on the 153 original pages had been meticulously translated by Department of Sustainable Development and Response to Climate Change at the Hanoi-based . The effort and devotion that our distant colleagues had spent on our publication exceeded all our expectations. .After the initial excitement had worn off we quickly developed a curiosity on the purpose behind the translation. To find out more we decided to ask one of the Vietnamese translators, Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Hai, some questions about why they thought it worthwhile to make the book, about planning in a far-away northern sea, available also to Vietnamese readers.Please find the full interview at .***For more information:Mr. Hermanni BackerProfessional SecretaryBaltic Marine Environment Protection Commission
Every single word and graph on the 153 original pages had been meticulously translated.
