Tour of Dong Nai Culture and Nature Reserve

Mr. Long, Mr Tan and I had an afternoon to visit Dong Nai Culture and Nature Reserve,  which is a huge protected area contiguous with Cat Tien National Park. This reserve has multiple international recognitions for its important conservation features, including high rates of endemic and endangered species, really high levels of plant and animal diversity, inclusion of several historical sites from the Vietnam-American war, and many ethnic groups that are indigenous to the area, who still live pretty traditional lifestyles.

The Dong Nai Culture and Nature Reserve is a part of the even larger Dong Nai Biosphere Reserve, which is a  UNESCO Biosphere reserves.  There are 8 UNESCO Biosphere Reserves in Vietnam. Dong Nai is one of these 8.

The Dong Nai Biosphere Reserve is 969, 993 hectares or (2.4 million acres) and is divided into 3 zones:

*Core Zone- focused on biodiversity management and cultural preservation; there are more use restrictions 72,000 hectares, includes Cat Tien NP and Dong Nai Culture and Nature Reserve

*Buffer Zone- this area does allow human uses for some agriculture or other methods to support livelihood,but there are restrictions because the Buffer Zone is considered a a corridor for conservation activities, and is expected to help protect the biodiversity in the Core Zone

*Transition Zone- appropriate economic development is encouraged, with coordination among all affected groups and agencies.

On our visit on Saturday, we visited areas that are part of the Dong Nai Culture and Nature Reserve. (DNCNR)   So we were in the Core Zone, but not in Cat Tien National Park (CTNP), but the two are biologically adjacent to one another. In Montana, this would be analagous to a big state managed park being adjacent to a national park, because DNCNR is managed by the provincial government while CTNP is managed by the General Forestry Agency (a federal level agency).


The Dong Nai Culture and Nature Reserve is not far from Vietnam Forestry University, and luckily for us, three Reserve staff (Mr Thanh, Ms Yen and Ms Oanh) who are participation in our workshop at Cat Tien just happened to be available to give us the VIP tour. Thank you Team Dong Nai (plus Mr Long in the red shirt)!

The combination of history, biodiversity and culture was really intriguing to me- I've never visited a protected area that incorporated all three together so strongly.  The headquarters is actually called "The Center for Ecology, History and Culture of War Zone D." I like the combination of subjects- you can tell there is a lot of history and complexity here.

We did a few different things:

Visited one of the important war sites. This site had an interpretative museum about war history and re-creation of the tunnels where Vietnamese people lived and worked and strategized during the war.

It has structures, statues, props, relics, and tunnels you can go into. What was so interesting to me was knowing that this place had been completely bombed and sprayed with Agent Orange and now the jungle is lush and diverse. It made me think a lot about the passage of time and the terrible things that happen in the world and other thoughts that I won't be able to articulate here.

We did some bird watching at the central lake. It's possible to rent a canoe or take a guided boat around the lake for sightseeing, more bird watching or trying your hand at fishing. 

We visited the natural history museum (collections room) at the Ecotourism Center. This was really fun and I could have spent an entire day hanging out there. We all took a ton of photos.

Here is Mr Thanh with a hornbill!

We ended with a festive and generous dinner at the Ecotourism Center Restaurant which had a lot of cool bird identification photos and names posted around the ceiling, with a fresh breeze blowing through.  Here is Mr Tan resting before dinner. He is probably translating something because he is always working!!

We saw the skeletons of this mother and baby elephant that are stored at the Ecotourism Center. This is a locally well known story: these elephants ate or destroyed a bunch of mango trees in a nearby community. For punishment, people put out some poison and these two (maybe more) were killed. Keep in mind that the Asian elephant is extremely rare, predicted to be extinct during my lifetime if I'm not mistaken.  Hopefully, with the strong work of Team Dong Nai and the other professionals  here, we can prevent further conflicts and support conservation together. Of course this means taking care of people too, and not shutting them out of decisions and helping to develop other livelihoods.  Hard work ahead. 

In the meantime, come visit Dong Nai Culture and Nature Reserve! If you email the Ecotourism Center (find it on their website) please them I sent you! And make sure you have some locally made rice wine with your delicious dinner. They make a special one here, labeled by DNCNR, which is made with a local medicinal root, Eurycoma longifolia. It's good for you!

*To get to the Dong Nai Culture and Nature Reserve, you can take a bus from Ho Chi Minh City to the city of Bien Hoa. Then transfer to a different bus to the small town of Vinh An, and then take a motorcycle taxi to the Reserve Headquarters. There's a guest house there! Probably best to email the staff so they can make some arrangements for you. They are in the process of putting some package tour descriptions on the web site so keep an eye out. They can also help you arrange bird watching or wildlife watching... Have fun!*

***This post was updated with very helpful fact checking by Ms Yen Ha!