The Hoang Lien Mountains are one of the most biologically and ethnically diverse landscapes in Vietnam and the wider Indochinese region. An estimated 25 percent of Vietnam’s endemic plant species including 177 species endemic to the mountain range are found in the Hoang Lien Mountains. Since 2000 FFI, in conjunction with the Yen Bai Province Forest Protection Department, have been implementing a community-based approach to conserve critically endangered gibbon, monkey and hornbill species found in Mu Cang Chai District.

Recently the first protected area in Vietnam under a new forest category of ‘species/habitat conservation area’ has been established in Mu Cang Chai. It is also the first in the country to have a mandate for collaborative management between local government and communities. Mu Cang Chai SHCA covers an area of 29,293ha, in a remote and isolated area in the southern part of the Hoang Lien Mountains.

     All the 1,600 people living in Che Tao Commune, which has been the project focus up to now, are ethnic Hmong. Seventy percent of households are considered to be ‘poor’ to ‘very poor’. The area is a priority for Vietnam’s poverty alleviation programme as local communities are considered some of the poorest in Vietnam and are heavily dependent on land and forest resources.

Due to its remote location, poor accessibility and the forest dependent subsistent economy of the Hmong communities, all stakeholders have acknowledged that effective management will have to be a collaborative effort. This was partly the reason for developing a new special-use forest category. Mechanisms being implemented to achieve the wider involvement of local communities include; Community-based Monitoring and Outreach Groups, Forest User Groups (dependent on new legislation being developed), Participatory Resource Mapping and Land Use Planning, Village regulation development, alternative livelihood interventions (beekeeping, animal fodder production trials) and participatory processes to establish genuine community representation in PA management (also dependent on new legislation being developed).

Quite apart of from the problems of natural resource degradation in the area, there are opportunities to demonstrate the possibilities for collaborative management and for integrating conservation and rural development.