Continuing on for primate conservation, and specifically we're working within Vietnam, wanted to go ahead and wanted to just give a couple of examples of conservation stories. Throughout the entire course we've definitely discussed Vietnam and a number of different areas. But now we'll spend a couple more minutes just going through and really kind of highlighting. I've highlighted four cases here, but can easily go through and discuss any number of additional cases. Okay, so we'll start off, we've got our map of Vietnam again. And the first area that we're going to go ahead and discuss is Cát Bà Island and Hạ Long Bay, so this will be the Cát Bà langur, the golden headed langur. We'll talk about Khac Quyet Forestagain, so this is going to be our Tonkin snub-nosed monkey, so the far north. Now again, we've just mentioned two endemic species, two critically endangered species, so two that only live within Vietnam. Okay, we've got the Kiên Giang tourist area, so down in the very far south. This is going to be Germain's langur, so one of our silver langur, and we'll spend a little bit of time talking about that, so in the far, far south of Vietnam. And then to the center of Vietnam, we'll talk about the Son Tra Nature Reserve and the red-shanked doucs there. Now, we got a north to south spread right here, and I've only singled out 4 cases out of the 25 species that we've already identified from the early biodiversity lecture. And I should say that none of them are more important than the others. There's definitely some that are more endangered or some more that are more threatened, but each one of them is incredibly important to the environment and to this conservation of biodiversity. We can talk about Cát Tiên National Park, the park where I've done my work. We've got black-shanked doucs there, we've got pig-tailed macaques, we've got long-tailed macaques, we've got rhesus macaques. We've got the gibbons that are there, so the yellow-cheeked gibbons. There's species of Loris that are within the area. And then that's just looking at the primate biodiversity. As I mentioned, it's an area that has incredible array of birds, so birders from all over the world specifically go there to see both critically endangered and endangered birds. We've talked about Văn Lâm up in the north with the Delacour's langur and how they are restricted to that small little limestone block. We can discuss Kalaweitup in the north with the Kalaweit gibbon and some of the restrictions and forests that they experienced there. And then we can also talk about some of our least concern species. So we have long-tailed macaques, which are located right outside of Ho Chi Minh City in a place called Can Gio, which is a mangrove forest that has since been rehabilitated since the American war. So species that there isn't a lot of conservation concern with as compared to say the critically endangered Tonkin snub-nosed monkey. But it's still a primate species that is most certainly threatened by this growing population of humans, by deforestation, by chemical traces still found in the soil. So a number of issues that we can really delve into. So rather than get bogged down by all of that, I just wanted to go ahead and talk about a couple of them. Okay, Hạ Long Bay and Cát Bà Island, so we're in the far north of Vietnam, and this is showing where Cát Bà is. So Cát Bà is the largest island in Hạ Long Bay, which is also the Gulf of Tonkin, or it's located in the Gulf of Tonkin, excuse me, and includes some 1,600 islands and islets, forming a spectacular landscape seascape of limestone pillars. Most of them are uninhabited and they say unaffected by human presence, but I don't think that's actually the case. And the reason why I say that is so, here's one of the main areas where people go in terms of tourism for Hạ Long Bay. So it's not unusual that you'll leave from Hai Phong, so you'll leave from the mainland, and as you start to go you'll have all these recreated junks and whatnot. And they follow a pretty standard path where they'll seam their way out to an island. You'll walk through this cave within the island, you'll get back on the boat and then either tour around more through Hạ Long Bay or they'll go ahead and I'll take you off to Cát Bà Island where they've built up a tourist infrastructure for people to stay there. Hạ Long Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and in terms of the amount of tourism that we're talking about here, they estimated there was five and a half million tourists annually. So five and a half million people came through last year and the number continues to increase each year. In addition to the amount of tourism that's going through there, it's a very important fishery and there are people that still live in these floating villages out in the bay. So you've got lots of tourism, you've got a large amount of human population, there's just a lot going on. It is an absolutely fantastic and amazing landscape, but there's definitely a lot of pressure in the area. Okay, our Cát Bà langur, so these are going to be the golden-headed langurs, we've talked about them a number of times. One of the top 25 endangered primates and there's a group called the Cát Bà Langur Conservation Project. And so they're working to really help the species as best they can. This is a species of primates that have I think global population is less than 70. One of the biggest concerns that they really have, aside from the fact that they live in this very restricted and very small area on the main island is rangers are continually confiscating guns. So there still is a bunch of hunting pressure that is going on for these animals, and then just the general tourism pressure. A lot of the forest area is being divided up, so you're going to get fragmentation. You've got animals that are living in small populations, so maybe non-viable populations. And then you've also got this, in some instances, rampant tourism that really can go through and affect the area. We go back to the far north, we have our Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys. So we've talked about this species a number of times, they are just such a striking species. Again, only found in the far north of Vietnam right next to the Chinese border. And the things that we can look out for these guys, again, we've got a very small global population. There still is some hunting pressure in some of the areas. Now, in the main area where we find them, in this Khac Quyet Forest, they've just recently, in the last couple of years, established the species and habitat conservation area for Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys and really invested heavily in the local peoples and local communities to stamp out a lot of the pressures that are in the area. So both hunting and deforestation. So the deforestation, remember we talked about interesting approaches to conservation was this stove program. So most of the people in this area cook over an open fire. It requires a lot of firewood, so there was a lot of concern about going through and really cutting down a lot of the forest to feed people. They bring in these new stoves that are far more efficient so people can use less wood in order to still be able to cook food for themselves. We talked about hydroelectric dams and how that's a particular problem. When this species was rediscovered, the first area that it was discovered was an area called Na Hang. They had found a small population of them, but it was an area that was immediately slated for a hydroelectric dam. So they find these animals, they're starting to do some research on them and starting to try and figure out what's going on with them, then a dam is built in the area. So you have an increase of people, you have forests being cut down, you have roads being built into the area. And there was just a tonne of pressure that was coming that, unfortunately, it looks like it probably extirpated that particular population in that area. Recent PhD Andy Young from CU Boulder did her research on genetic diversity within the population. And an unfortunate result is that the area in Khac Quyet was found to have a very small genetic diversity. So when we can start talking about genetic bottlenecks and some species, black-footed ferret and the cheetah have been able to make it through some of these things, but there's arguments for other species. I think Tasmanian devil is one of them. That you really can start to have some serious concerns and serious issues with this low genetic diversity. But this is definitely a species that has a large number of people working on it. And there's lots and lots of positive things that are happening in terms of community development through outreach, through education for the kids in the surrounding communes. And it's a species that has gotten a lot of global attention. Okay, taking a trip all the way down to the far south, down to the Mekong region, very close to the border with Cambodia, we could talk about habitat degradation and Germain's langur. So the group that I want to talk about for a moment here is a member of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, the group is called SIE, the Southern Institute for Ecology. And it's a group of Vietnamese scientists and students and scholars who have been working throughout the south of Vietnam and have done a wealth of great ecological studies and continue to work with both national and international scientists in order to help conserve not only primates, but a number of plant species and animal species in Vietnam. So the area we're talking about, as a you can see, this forested block amongst a whole bunch of developed area, and what is going on here is limestone mining for construction. So there's a picture of this block, this forest block, this karst limestone block with a lot of trees on it. And you can see the two faces of it have been completely cut away. So they've denuded the forest and they've gone ahead and they started cutting that rock out of there as well so that they can get that limestone for construction material. There has been work with the limestone companies, with the construction companies to help do some more research on these animals to see about translocating them. So taking them from one forest block that is going to be mined and moving them over to a separate forest block. Interesting studies on plant diversity and plant species to see if we can look at one hill that has been mined, one hill that has not been mined, and then one hill that's in the process to see if there's a certain signature or a certain signal or tree cover that the monkeys need. They've also looked at building some of these bridges, some of the suspension and rope bridges to help the animals move from one section to another so that you can connect to these fragmented populations and see about helping to conserve these species. And then another one that we've mentioned and talked about a little bit is the Son Tra Nature Reserve, and this is right outside of Da Nang City, so right in central Vietnam. It is this particular peninsula, and just off of the island, or juts off of the mainland right there and it used to be an important forward base for the US military. Has continued to be, in some instances, an important base for the Vietnamese as well because it does project off into the coast that gives you a good sense of what is actually coming towards the coastline. It's also a very popular tourist destination with both domestic and international tourists coming here. At the start of the section, there was a picture from the beach and that was part of the Da Nang on coastline. So you've just have this long stretch of absolutely wonderful beaches. It was the old China beach back in the American war. Some of the other popular things that are going in, so just to the west of the city, and it's marked off on the map as Bana Hills. And there's this bridge that is a pair of hands coming out of the ground and holding this pedestrian bridge that you can then get amazing views along the area. Another very popular tourist destination is Hội An, which is seen just on the south at the very bottom of the map that's on there. Hội An is another UNESCO site and it's a preserved fishing port and trading village. So there's some absolutely amazing architecture and some of the streets are still preserved so you can walk down and see the shop fronts, lots of museums, and then this historic port. It's an absolutely beautiful, beautiful place to visit, and there's more of these traditional themes and traditional arts that are still produced in that area. So, not only do you have a very large modern city in Da Nang, but you have this preserved, ancient area, just south of it in Hội An. Because you get so much tourism and because it is an absolutely fantastic beach area, people really want to go ahead and they want to try to cash in on this area and want to build more hotels, more restaurants, more tourist destinations. So during the past few years a number of Vietnamese conservation groups have appealed to the central government about the impact of development. So the central government has put a halt to all new construction on Sonjang and has forced a turnover in the local government to be more protective and more focused on conservation than just on this short-term economic gain. So looking really more for a long-term sustainability. So if this is one particular section of the Songang peninsula with this excellent forest going right to the coast, this is some of the development that has happened in the area where they've gone through and completely cut apart the habitat. They've built in more road systems and everything else so that it's easier to access through it. There's now a road that goes all along the entire coast of the island, excuse me, not the island, but of the peninsula. So it is a very easy to access area. What's important is that this area does have the largest population of red-shanked doucs in Vietnam, there's also pictured here, macaque that is quite easy to see there. But, again, you've got a large healthy population, population estimates up in the 600s. And it's an area that is, when you get on a motorbike from Da Nang City and you can be in this nature reserve right along the coast and seeing these endangered primates in about a half hour's time. A group that was mentioned before, so this is some of the students and the researchers and the director of GreenViet. So that is the local Vietnamese non-government organization that has done incredible work in terms of not only doing research on the animals, but also going and doing a lot of community outreach. They're the group that does a lot of the trash pickup. They're the groups that go out to the schoolchildren and to the schools and help to teach about biodiversity conservation and about animal conservation. They're also the ones that have set up the center in Da Nang, right at the base of Songang, where students can come through or international tourists or international researchers can come through and learn more about primate conservation and about biodiversity conservation within this important area. So I'm going to go ahead, and then we'll close with that. Again, just four examples out of a larger number of examples, but we've talked about threats, we've talked about biodiversity, we've talked about ways that people can get involved. So really a broad overview of primate conservation.
