Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
snares from the 220-square-kilometer Saola Nature Reserve in Vietnam's Thua Thien Hue
Province.
Do war zones and former war zones always spell decline or disaster for rarities? Some-
times contested areas or the frontlines create no-man's-lands between warring factions where
the opposing armies rarely enter. In these buffer zones of relative calm—which also are often
heavily mined, as were the borders of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos—wildlife can recov-
er. A classic example is the Korean Demilitarized Zone. On this thin strip of heavily mined
land, the Korean Peninsula's wildlife, from cranes to deer, has made a comeback. Missing
are Amur tigers, but plans are afoot to return them there. An international effort to recover
wildlife in former war zones, the Peace Parks Foundation, has as its mission to promote con-
servation along borders between former combatant nations. There is ample opportunity for
this foundation to build a large portfolio of transboundary conservation efforts in the devel-
oping world.
At the end of the day, it is fair to ask: How much of what goes on in Vietnam is the legacy
of armed conflict, and how much is a disregard for the intrinsic value of nature and rarities?
Is Vietnam that much worse than other countries?
It is impossible to test the counterfactual in Indochina—in the absence of decades of war,
would rare large mammals still be so endangered and many common species made rare? To
do so, one would need to study several replicate Indochinas and hold all other factors constant
except for armed conflict in some and long periods of peace in others. Moreover, separat-
ing the aftermath of war from combat itself is problematic. What seems irrefutable, however,
is that the combined effects of an armed postwar rural populace, lax governance in remote
areas regarding hunting and conservation laws, protein shortage, and widespread loss of hab-
itat would likely leave only the small and inedible rarities safe. Even rare endemic land snails
could fill a cooking pot. The evidence so far points to Vietnam creating more ghosts. Mean-
while, an adjacent former war zone in Cambodia stands poised to restore past treasures.
February 2010. Mondulkiri Protected Forest, eastern Cambodia. We were here to see
firsthand another Indochinese landscape attempting to recover from the legacy of decades of
armed conflict. Barney Long, a young British biologist working for the WWF, sat in the pas-
senger seat of the air-conditioned Land Cruiser and served as wildlife spotter as we drove
along the dusty road from the town of Sen Monorom into the Mondulkiri Protected Forest
reserve. At the wheel was Nick Cox, who for the past five years had served as regional co-
ordinator of the WWF's Indochina Dry Forests program. I sat behind them, enjoying the cool,
dry air and glad that the thick red road dust coated only the car and not its passengers. How
different our journey was from the one Charles Wharton had taken in this same region in the
