Doi Moi reforms which were initiated from 1986 onwards by a new generation of more progressive Vietnamese political leaders. Empirically, records of environmental movement activities such as protests seeking to address environmental issues show that these have mostly taken place with greater frequency starting from after major examples (for instance, the movements or activism relating to the preservation of Hanoi’s Reunification Park, as recounted by Andrew Wells-Dang, and that relating to the bauxite controversy as recounted by Jason Morris-Jung) had created greater overall awareness and concern, which Stephan Ortmann argues is from around 2010 onwards, where there have been at least 13 major environmental protests involving hundreds, if not thousands, of protesters. At one level, new types of environmental issues were created as a byproduct of new and increased economic activities, given that the primary objective of reforms was to boost business growth in an attempt to eradicate poverty. For example, while business and agricultural reforms led to the creation of more than 30,000 new private businesses and reduced the percentage of the Vietnamese population living under the poverty line from about 50 percent to 29 percent, an environmental consequence of this growth reported in a 2003 publication jointly produced by MONRE, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Fisheries was the conflict created between demands for land development and planning on the one hand, and area conservation plans on the other. How did the Doi Moi reforms, which were primarily economic in nature, relate to the 11 growth of civil society, including the environmental movement, in Vietnam? This has been a matter of some historiographical debate, with tensions pulling in multiple directions. By and large, the party-state has hinted at the importance of local participation at the grassroots level in social issues including the environment. That being said, obstacles to active involvement in the environmental movement and civil society continued to persist, some of which were had always been present in Vietnam, while others, ironically, were consequences of economic reforms. For instance, some historians stressed the persistence of Leninist structure which made it difficult for bottom-up initiatives to gain any real traction, while also highlighting the resistance of strong economic interest groups whose businesses would not have benefited from tighter environmental controls and regulations, were these to come into reality as a product of greater awareness of environmental issues and successful activism15. The role of