URGENT CONSERVATION OF THE ASIAN ELEPHANT POPULATION IN VIETNAM

 Asian elephant Elephas maximus is among the highly endangered large mammal species in the Wold. The species is survived only in 13 countries with a total number of approximately 40,000 individuals. In Vietnam, only 100-120 elephants remain. They live in 8 provinces at small isolated groups. The groups of above 10 individuals exist only in 3 areas including Pumat National Park (Nghe An Province), Cat Tien National Park - Dong Nai Nature Reserve (Dong Nai Province) and Yok Don National Park - Easup District (Dak Lak Province). Key challenges in conservation of Asian elephants in Vietnam are:
- Many groups has no male, or old females
- Natural forests as habitats of many elephant groups have been cleared and degraded
- Human-elephant conflict is increasing and becomes serious in many areas that causes the death of people and retaliatory killing of elephants
- Elephant conservation capacity of local enforcement and elephant management institutions is low. Local villagers are very poor and rely on natural forest for their livelihood.
Since 2013, Vietnam Government has adopted a Master Plan for urgent conservation of Asian Elephants in Vietnam. In response to this, Centre for Resource, Environment and Climate change (CeREC) actively supports elephant conservation in Vietnam through field surveys for elephant status assessment and ecological study, development of conservation strategies for each elephant groups, conservation awareness education and capacity building training on elephant monitoring and Human-elephant conflict mitigation

Male elephant in Pumat NP

Conservation awareness education for local villagers