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TA KOU NATURE RESERVE AS A KEY BIODIVERSITY AREA FOR THE COASTAL MOST SOUTHERN CENTRAL OF VIETNAM

Hong Truong LUU

Center for Biodiversity and Development

Institute of Tropical Biology

85 Tran Quoc Toan, District 3, Hochiminh City

Tel/Fax: 08-9320355

Email: hongtruongluu@yahoo.com  

Summary

This paper discusses about the need to pay more attention to the biodiversity conservation of Ta Kou Nature Reserve and the coastal most southern central of Vietnam based on recent findings on the biodiversity of the reserve.

 The three-Phan region in the coastal most southern central of Vietnam

The coastal area of Binh Thuan and Ninh Thuan provinces, which may be called briefly as the three-Phan region because of the three local towns Phan Rang, Phan Ri and Phan Thiet, is located in the coastal most southern central of Vietnam. The average annual temperature in the region is rather high, ranging from 26.1^oC to 26.6^oC. The hottest month is May with a mean temperature around 28.7^oC. There is no cold winter. Due to the shadow effect of topography, the annual rainfall changes from 500 mm to 775 mm at Phan Rang City (Ninh Thuan Province) but may reach 1,300 mm to 1,400 mm at Phan Thiet City (Binh Thuan Province).

 Phan Rang is considered as the driest area of Vietnam, where there are 50 – 60 days of rain per year and the dry season lasts 10 months (from November to August of the next year). The temperature ranges from 12^oC to 38^oC indicating a difference of 24 degrees between the maximum and minimum temperatures. The humidity does not change much between the two seasons with an annual average relative humidity of 71% - the lowest humidity in Viet Nam. During the first 3 months of the year, the climate is very dry, exhibiting characteristics of a desert

 The development of agriculture is one of the most important factors to have shaped the present landscapes of the region. Beside fisheries, agricultural production is the main practice generating income for the local people in the three-three-Phan region. Cultivated plants are rice, cashew, grape and dragon-fruit. High population and agriculture development have reduced and are causing strong threats on the remaining forests of which are mostly in the two coastal protected areas in the three-Phan region, namely Nui Chua National Park (Ninh Thuan Province) and Ta Kou Nature Reserve (Binh Thuan Province).

 Belonging to the dry coastal monsoon climate, the three-Phan region includes the critical priority landscape SA4 & SA7 – two priority areas for conservation action in the Greater Annamites ecoregion as defined by WWF (http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/where_we_work/asia_pacific/our_solutions/greatermekong/greater_annamites_ecoregion/
about_the_area/priority_places/southern_annamites/index.cfm). The landscapes SA4 & SA7 are reported to “cover the few remaining patches of a very distinctive dry forest community restricted to areas on the coastal plain to the east of the Southern Annamite range”. The dryness and isolation has resulted in development of very unique floral communities. This is also reported by Schmid (1974), Thai, V.T. (1978, 1999) and confirmed by Nguyen et al (2000) that dry dipterocarp deciduous woodlands and scrubs are typical and can be observed in lowlands of Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan provinces where the precipitation is about 600-800 mm/year.

 It is noticeable in the report of WWF (website above) that although there is no evidence that there are birds and mammals endemic to this dry coastal zone, “many if not all species endemic to these forests are potentially at severe risk in the short term and probably still at high risk in the long-term” because of the small size of the area and the pressures/threats.

 Up to now, most of research on the biodiversity in the three-Phan region has paid to Ninh Thuan Province, especially to the driest flat area around Phan Rang. Thai et al. (1965) reports about the plants in the Ninh Thuan flat area. The Rubiaceae in along the coast of Ninh Thuan is known to have been surveyed by Tirvengadum in 1984 (Doan, 2006). The vegetation around present Phan Rang City has been reported by Schnell (1962), Schmid (1974) and Thai, V.T. (1978).  Based on the above research, several other authors draw arguments that in so semi-arid coastal area as Ninh Thuan lowlands the low and irregularly rainfall and the sandy and shallow soil layer do not support the development of high-biodiversity vegetation. Like Rundel (2000), Nguyen, N.B. (1996) argues that the original vegetation should be a dry tropical forest dominated by dipterocarps and have fast changed to the present thorny scrubs after deforestation. Nguyen et al. (1997) assumes the dry landscape with grass, scrubs and rock as unique savannah in Southeast Asia. Based on previous research and its field surveys, FIPI (1997) reports about the characteristics of the plant biodiversity in the watershed protection forests of the whole Ninh Thuan Province while recommending further studies. The plants of Nui Chua National Park (NP) is surveyed by Institute of Ecology and Biological Resource (IEBR) and FIPI in 2002, by IEBR and WWF in 2003 and again by IEBR (2004) (see Doan, 2006). The recent report by Doan (2006) provides more synthesized and systematic information on the plant and animal biodiversity of Nui Chua NP supplementing the previous feasibility study report by FIPI (2003). The ecology of the black-shanked douc langur (Pygathryx nigripes) in Nui Chua NP is reported by Hoang (2003), Hoang & Baxter (2006a,b,c,d) and Hoang & Ly (2005). The above reports have contributed to the understanding the biodiversity in the three-Phan region, especially in Nui Chua NP. They serve as the foundation for conservation programmes in the park, e.g. the community-based sea turtle conservation programme being implemented by WWF/Department of Science and Technology/Nui Chua NP. At present, the non-timber forest products of the park are under survey and development by the Center for Biodiversity and Institute of Tropical Biology. It is not our goal to list the results of the above programmes but to indicate how important they are to our understanding of the biodiversity of the whole three-Phan region.

 The gap in the three-Phan region: Ta Kou Nature Reserve

Ta Kou Nature Reserve (NR) is established in 1996. It is one of the two present protected areas of Binh Thuan Province.  It is about 20 km away from Phan Thiet City and 180 km from Hochiminh City. According to FIPI (1996), the reserve spreads within 10⁰41’28” - 10⁰53’01” N latitude and 107⁰52’14” - 108⁰01’34” E longitude. Its strictly protected corezone of 11,866 ha includes 697 m high and 1,104 ha Ta Kou Mountain and a 10,762 ha large coastal sandy flat area. The 5,957 ha bufferzone includes man-made agricultural ecosystems and deserted coastal sandy land distributed in 15 villages in Ham Minh Township and 5 communes of Tan Thanh, Tan Thuan, Thuan Quy, Ham Cuong and Tan Lap. The total population of the bufferzone is 3,215 persons/636 households (2006). The main income is from the dragon-fruit (for export) and rice production although some hundreds of households depend more or less on forest resources. There are 200 ethnic Cham households, 50 of whom are contracted to protect the allocated dipterocarp forests which are selectively logged and usually tapped by Kinh people for oleoresin. The Cham is famous for their traditional medicine using the plants collected from the local dipterocarp forests and Ta Kou Mountain.

 Coastal sandy soil and dry climate are the main characteristics for the region making it difficult for local people to farm agricultural crops and thus many of them rely on forest products. This is strengthened by reduction of forests. Oleoresin from the Vietnam-endemic Dipterocarpus cf. condorensis Pierre is an important commodity used in caulking fishing boats of coastal villagers. The other small forests include shrub vegetation and mangrove wetlands which have been impacted by human (tourism, shrimp farm and agricultural crops). A number of medicinal and food plants are exploited without control. Besides forest fire, the destruction of dipterocarp forests and over exploitation of forest resources is considered by local people as the main threats to the existing forests and especially to the sources of medicinal plants

 Ta Kou Mountain, known a "minor" scattered part of the Annamites (FIPI 1996), lies in the west-north part of the reserve. It is the watershed for streams and wells which are the unique water source for local living purposes and for the dragon-fruit and other cultivated plants in the bufferzone. There is no big river in the project area. This indicates that the conservation of the vegetation of Ta Kou Mountain play an important role on the sustainability of the local livelihood as it secures the water source for living and cultivating activities.

 The protection of the reserve is based on total number of staff of the reserve is 21 persons, 11 of whom are forest rangers force assigned to patrol/protect the reserve (average protection ratio: >1,000 ha per forest ranger). This number of forest rangers distributed for 5 forest protection stations set up around the corezone is considered to be too low to protect the reserve which is under high threats by human impacts. In addition, a forest area of 1,917 ha is protected by 50 contracted Cham-ethnic households under the 5-million ha programme. The yearly budget for the reserve is provided by the State with VND 965,985,000 in 2006. This budget is used mostly for salary. There is no budget for scientific and capacity building activities. Up to now, there is no programme to improve the public awareness of the biodiversity and forest resources and to involve the participation of local people to manage the reserve. As a result that is also seen in the other protected areas in the country, a true co-management of forest has not been applied in the reserve. Meanwhile, forest violation often occurs despite no reliable data are reported.

 Unlike Nui Chua NP which attracts a number of research and conservation programmes, Ta Kou NR – located in the critical priority landscape SA7, is still not known to many conservation organizations. This reflects that inadequate attention by national and international conservation institutions and forest managing agencies has been given to Ta Kou NR while local communities continue over-exploiting natural resources endangering the vegetation and many species in the reserve. For the public, the name Ta Kou used to be a good source of medicinal plants and is now a well-known tourist site because there are several Buddhist pagodas, mainly located on Ta Kou Mountain. A tourist company, namely Binh Thuan Tourism Company, established a car-cable system which is reported to carry more than 200,000 tourists and pilgrims annually to visit the pagodas since 2003. The visitors cause high pressure on the natural environment of the mountain. In general, the biodiversity of the reserve is officially considered as low by the authorities, i.e. on the website (http://www.kiemlam.org.vn/BaotonTT/RungDD/RDD_MN.htm, accessed on January 11, 2007).

 The biodiversity of and threats to Ta Kou NR has not been adequately assessed. This obviously contributes to the low awareness of the importance of the reserve by all stakeholders (local communities, the reserve staff, authorities and conservation organizations) and therefore to the low investment and the low effectiveness of the present protecting activities. This contributes to the low effectiveness of forest protecting activities. Local communities are not aware of the endangered resources that they are exploiting and therefore they do not actively take part in conserving the reserve; this holds true for the forest rangers who are assigned to protect the reserve. The final consequence is continued loss of biodiversity/natural resources (water, medicinal plants, other forest products, and endangered species) which the local livelihood rely on.

 However, it is reasonable to report some important information based on the research of the Center for Biodiversity and Development and the Institute of Tropical Biology although the work is continued. Accordingly, the corezone of the reserve may be divided into two vegetation areas:

-         The vegetation of Ta Kou Mountain which consists of three forest types (tropical evergreen seasonal submountain forest, tropical semi-deciduous submountain forest and tropical drought-deciduous broad-leaved lowland forest) which provide high quality and famous sources of medicinal plants in southern Vietnam. The first one is dominated with a number of evergreen species, many of which belong to the Fagaceae and Lauraceae families. The second is dominated with mixture of deciduous and evergreen trees. The most remarkable deciduous species is Lagerstroemia calyculata. The evergreen species that takes the same importance in the forest story are Linociera sangda, Syzygium oblatum, Syzygium petelotii. The last is characterized with some deciduous species, namely Lannea coromandelina, Erythrina variegata, Bombax ceiba, Markhamia stipulata var. pierrei. The main characteristics of these forest types are reported by Luu (2000;2001) and Ly & Luu (2007).

-         The 10,762 ha coastal flat area of the reserve which is mostly occupied by dry dipterocarp-dominated forests which are the typical ecosystems for the coastal sandy southern Central of Vietnam. These ecosystems are habitats of many endangered and endemic species that should be effectively conserved because they are not only unique but also the source of native species useful for reforesting/rehabilitating the regional coastal land which is now deserted after deforestation.

 These forest ecosystems are habitats of many endangered and endemic species that should be effectively conserved because they are not only unique but also the source of native species useful for reforesting/rehabilitating the regional coastal land which is now deserted after deforestation.

 The flora and fauna of the whole reserve has not been investigated in details although a preliminary study of birds was established by Diep (2000) – a staff of CBD. This study records 94 bird species of 38 families of 15 orders. It also indicates that birds and other animals were tapped and hunted by local people and those coming from several provinces.

 The previous surveys of CBD were mainly focused on the flora of Ta Kou Mountain.We have recorded around 1,000 species of vascular plants, more than a quarter of which can be used in medicine. Some useful plants are described in Luu et al. (2007). Recent surveys of CBD on Ta Kou Mountain indicate that the number of collectors of medicinal plants is decreasing due to the very much reduced stock of medicinal plants.

 Although the fauna of the reserve and the vegetation of the flat area of the reserve are under survey in a project supported by the Netherlands Committee for IUCN (project number VN CBD 600174), some rare and endangered species have been recorded by CBD. Endangered animals are recently known to exist but their status in the reserve needs to be examined in this project, including:

 There are at least the following 15 endangered plant species occurring in Ta Kou NR:

Recently, Ngo & Bauer (2008) described Cyrtodactylus takouensis sp. nov. which is known endemic to southern Vietnam and to exist only on Ta Kou Mountain.

 Although more rare and endangered species may be recorded in the NC-IUCN-supported project in Ta Kou NR, these species and the forest ecosystems mentioned above are flagship to prove the high biodiversity of Ta Kou NR in particular and in the three-Phan region in general and to confirm them as critical priority landscape SA4 & SA7. Ta Kou NR and the three-Phan region should be re-considered about its importance in the biodiversity conservation of the country. There obviously needs more attention and investment for systematic research and conservation in both the reserve and the region. In this process, a sound database of biodiversity and local human demands would be very useful to integrate into local socio-economic planning programmes to ensure a sustainable development of the region. This is urgent because impacts by the climate change have been predicted to the three-Phan region (Oxfam & Kyoto University, 2007) and to Ta Kou NR (Pilgrim 2007) and because the fast economic development is causing strong threats to the biodiversity in the three-Phan region.

Reference

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