Emergency conservation of Vietnam wild elephants

The Forest Protection Department has just submitted to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development for approval the urgent action plan for the conservation of Vietnam wild elephants in the face of serious decline.

Buon Don elephants in the precinct of Trai Cung - Photo: VNN

The Forest Protection Department and the Central Highlands, Nghe An and Dong Nai provinces have jointly established 3 special elephant conservation areas and established 3 management boards for wildlife conservation in these areas. The goal of this special conservation zone program is to increase awareness education on elephant conservation for the community, manage elephants and international cooperation to develop forest elephant genomes.

The 250,000-hectare Tay Nguyen elephant sanctuary is protecting two wild elephant populations (about 128) in Dak Lak forest areas and southwest of Gia Lai province. The 160,000-hectare protected area set up in natural forests in Dong Nai province will preserve more than 10 animals and the 200,000-hectare protected area in the southwest of Nghe An province will preserve about 20 animals.

The main solutions are given to protect living areas and food sources, boosting forest regeneration and greening bare land and denuded hills and mountains, eliminating illegal camps and fields in active elephants and at the same time increasing strengthening mobilization of people to participate in forest protection and illegal hunting and hunting.

In addition to the three special elephant conservation areas, Quang Nam province is also urgently setting up a 56,000 ha elephant sanctuary in the western part of the province to protect the forest elephants that have been living there for many years. by.

The Central Truong Son Biodiversity Conservation Program in the period 2004-2020, being implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, also aims to establish an effective management area for forest elephants by 2007. in the regional provinces.

Vietnam is one of 13 Asian countries with elephant populations. However, Vietnamese elephant elephants are at risk of extinction, with the decline of elephants up to 93% compared to 30 years ago - the level of emergency alert. In the years 1975-1980, Vietnam had 2,000 wild elephants but by 2005 there were less than 150 individuals, concentrated in the provinces along the Vietnam-Laos and Vietnam-Cambodia borders.

According to research by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), forest elephants are increasingly absent, even in the forest areas that are their main habitats such as old forests in the Nam Truong Range. Son, including in Dak Lak, Quang Nam and Nghe An provinces.

At Dak Lak Plateau, the long-standing habitat of Vietnam forest elephants, by the end of 2005, there were no more than 60 elephants, halving compared to 1997 and one-seventh of 30 years ago.