CHINESE AND VIETNAMESE SCIENTISTS BEGIN JOINT BORDER SURVEYS

After months of careful planning, a team of Chinese and Vietnamese plant experts will begin searching for rare trees in the limestone highlands of northern Vietnam this week.

Falling within the Indo-Burma hot-spot, the highlands of the China-Vietnam border have been particularly prioritised for their diverse and highly threatened primates and trees, especially conifers and magnolias.

On 27th October eight scientists from the Centre for Plant Conservation (CPC) in Vietnam and the Kunming Botanical Garden in China arrived in Bat Dai Son Nature reserve in Northern Vietnam to begin 22 days of surveys, which will see them travel to three different areas near the border with China looking for rare trees.

The surveys, part of the Global Trees Campaign, aim to identify key sites for conservation of rare trees in this little known area and encourage future collaboration between scientists and conservationists in the two countries.

Research for the 2007 Red List of Magnoliaceae revealed that the known distribution of many rare Chinese magnolias (including Magnolia sinica and Magnolia phanerophlebia) stops abruptly at Vietnamese border and it is hoped that these searches may reveal further populations of some of these highly threatened species in Vietnam. The Global Trees Campaign is already working with CPC on the conservation of five key conifers in Vietnam, but locating sites where rare conifers, magnolias and potentially other threatened trees overlap would ensure maximum returns for conservation investment in this highly diverse but threatened region.

See Identification of key sites for threatened trees in the karst limestone highlands of northern Vietnam and southern China for more information.

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