Bu Gia Map National Park

In Bù Gia Mập, the first sound that reaches you is not a human voice but birdsong. It is a forest where that is still true.

The park lies in two communes, Đắk Ơ and Bù Gia Mập. This is the area once called Bình Phước, which is now part of Đồng Nai Province. The park began as the Bù Gia Mập Closed Forest, set up in 1986. In 2002 this nature reserve was raised to the rank of national park.

The park is large. Its total area is about 26,032 hectares, and natural forest covers about 21,376 hectares of it. The buffer zone around it adds about 15,200 hectares. The forest also guards the headwaters of the reservoirs for the Thác Mơ and Cần Đơn hydropower plants. It is a green lung that keeps water for a whole wide region.

Its variety of life ranks among the richest in the south. The plants alone number more than 1,117 species, in 127 families and 62 orders. Among them are rare hardwoods such as gõ đỏ and gõ mật. Two more are cẩm lai Bà Rịa and giáng hương quả to. There is also an orchid called lan hoàng thảo.

The animal record is long as well. The park has logged 106 species of mammals, 246 of birds and 31 of fish. It counts 87 species of amphibians and 289 of insects. Elephants are recorded here, and so is the bò tót. Among the birds are the gà so cổ hung and the hồng hoàng. The niệc mỏ vằn is on the list too. All of them live deep in the old forest.

The park also has a wildlife rescue center. Animals seized from illegal trade, or found injured, are taken in and cared for there. They are helped to recover wild behavior before they are released back into nature. Each animal arrives with its own story. The quiet of the center says that their real freedom lies out there, in the deep forest.

Bù Gia Mập also holds a layer of history that few people know. The end point of the VK96 fuel pipeline once lay in this border forest. The system ran for almost 5,000 kilometers, from Móng Cái in the north to this place. It was built during the Vietnam War. It is described as one of the longest strategic supply works in Southeast Asia in wartime.

The Đắk Mai waterfall lies about 6 kilometers from the park center. It is about 15 meters wide and about 10 meters high. In 1966 it served as a base for the Security Board of Region 10. Today the water still falls steadily, as it did decades ago. Only its story has grown much thicker.

On November 25, 2022, 39 trees in the park were recognized as Vietnam Heritage Trees. They have lived for hundreds of years. They have watched the forest change through war and through peace, and they still stand there, silent and steady.

This is not the glitter of a modern resort. It is something far rarer, a forest that is still truly a forest. Wild life goes on right here, whether or not anyone sees it.