Conservation update on Western black crested gibbon and Tonkin snub-nosed monkey FFI Projects in Vietnam

Conservation update on the Western black crested gibbon and Tonkin snub-nosed monkey FFI Projects in Vietnam

In 2020 Fota Wildlife Park contributed €26,000 to two ongoing Fauna and Flora International (FFI) primate population conservation projects in Vietnam.

Fota Wildlife Park has been sponsoring the Western black crested gibbon and Tonkin snub-nosed monkey conservation programmes since 2012, financially supporting the Community Conservation Teams’s incomes (CCT) who carry out patrols and biological monitoring in Mu Cang Chai, Muong La and Ha Giang.

The overall project goal is to stabilise, and where possible increase, key primate populations in Vietnam, with Fota Wildlife Park’s support specifically concentrating on the Western black crested gibbon in Mu Cang Chai Species and Habitat Conservation Area and the adjacent Muong La Nature Reserve, and the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey in the Tung Vaiforest (QuanBa) and KhauCa Species and Habitat Conservation Area in Ha Giang province.

Mu Cang Chai is recognised nationally and internationally as being of critical biological importance. It is home to globally important populations of the Critically Endangered western black crested gibbon and the endangered Phayre’s langur and Yellow-throated marten.

In April 2008, FFI confirmed the presence of an important population Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys (Rhinopithecus avunculus) in Quan Ba Watershed Protection Forest, Ha Giang Province now the second-largest known population of this species. it is recognised nationally and internationally as being of critical biological importance and the CCTs, supported by Fota Wildlife Park, are essential to the survival of this population.

The Community Conservation Teams carry out smart patrols, biological monitoring and reporting on any threats to the habitats such as illegal logging which helps remove the threats and continue the protections to these critically endangered primates.

Fota Wildlife Park has committed to another two years of funding for this project.

See www.fotawildlife.ie/conservation for more on the conservation work that Fota Wildlife Park is involved in.