Survey Reveals Status of Wildlife in Vietnam
The results of the largest systematic camera trap survey ever conducted in Southeast Asia, with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), were presented at the National Conference on Protected Areas.
The survey, carried out by USAID’s Biodiversity Conservation Activity, represents the most comprehensive and systematic biodiversity survey ever conducted in Vietnam and builds on previous USAID-supported projects in the country to monitor biodiversity and forest cover. The survey confirms what has been widely suspected for many years – that populations of several key wildlife species have either disappeared or are in such low numbers as to be unviable as a result of widespread indiscriminate snaring.
“We are pleased to have partnered with MARD (the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) and forest management boards to carry out one of the largest national biodiversity and threat baseline surveys ever in Vietnam,” said USAID/Vietnam Deputy Mission Director Bradley Bessire.
“We hope that biodiversity monitoring results from this survey will be utilized to inform and improve overall protected area management and policy development in Vietnam.”
Project partners set up 1,176 camera trap stations in 21 protected areas (PAs) across eight provinces, capturing more than 120,000 independent wildlife detections in millions of images during 2019-2023. Notable was the absence of large carnivores and herbivores, such as tigers, clouded leopards, Asiatic wild dogs, and the elusive saola – one of the few large mammals to be discovered in the world in the last 50 years. Asian elephants were detected in just two sites, and wild cattle species such as gaur only detected in one out of 21 sites surveyed. The most prevalent species recorded were those most resilient to hunting pressure, such as macaques, ferret badgers and wild pigs.
Although the survey revealed that wildlife has severely declined in all 21 PAs, there are still relatively high levels of species richness and endemism, with nine Annamite-endemic and 21 non-endemic but highly threatened species recorded. Rare species, such as the large-antlered muntjac and sun bear were also detected, providing some of the few records of these species in Vietnam in the past 20 years,
A second survey is now underway across all the sites and will be compared to the baseline biodiversity survey when the USAID Biodiversity Conservation activity concludes in 2025, allowing the project to assess biodiversity trends in the 21 sites during its implementation period.
Director of the Forestry Department Tran Quang Bao said: “We look forward to seeing the project's biodiversity survey results become more effective, supporting the Forestry Department to recommend appropriate policy to protect wildlife and conserve biodiversity.”
Despite species losses, there are positive signs that investment in threat reduction in a few sites in Central Vietnam, including those previously supported by USAID, is resulting in stabilized or even increased populations of some species. This underscores the need to maintain investments in conservation efforts - including through the deployment of community patrol teams - in parallel with efforts to rewild Vietnam’s protected areas.
Nick Cox, Chief of Party, USAID Biodiversity Conservation, implemented by WWF, stated: “For the first time we have the data to confirm Vietnam’s wildlife populations are in dire straits. At the same time there are signs that investments by the Vietnam Government, and by local and international NGOs, have had a positive impact. Now is the time to start a national conservation breeding program to rewild the country’s protected areas, while protection efforts are sustained and increased, especially to reduce snaring.”
USAID Biodiversity Conservation Activity (BCA), being implemented from 2020 to June of 2025, aims to maintain and increase forest quality and protect and stabilize wildlife populations in high conservation value provinces, and targets 14 special-use forests (SUFs) and seven protection forests (PFs), linking forest management units across the landscape to maintain forest cover and connectivity of habitats vital for the protection of Vietnam’s threatened and endemic species. BCA is implemented by WWF-US in collaboration with the project’s partners including WWF- Vietnam, Helvetas, Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Re:wild, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Education for Nature Vietnam (ENV), and Fauna & Flora.
Last year, the USAID Biodiversity Conservation Activity launched a $1.4 million Species Conservation Fund (SCF) in Vietnam to support locally-led conservation efforts initiated by Vietnamese NGOs and other independent organizations.
SCF is a part of the $38 million USAID Biodiversity Conservation Activity and aims to strengthen biodiversity conservation in Vietnam, especially through local organizations. Specifically, the SCF will support local NGOs and research organizations to conduct activities that contribute to conserving priority species of wildlife. The fund will provide awards from $20,000 to $50,000 for projects up to one and half year.