Cat Tien National Park

A boat or ferry waits at the gate of Cát Tiên National Park, and stepping onto it feels like crossing a line. Behind the boat are the paved road, the traffic and the noise of people and machines. Ahead, where the boat touches the far bank, lies a different world. The trees stand tall. The quiet is of another kind. The place seems to belong outside the rhythm of ordinary life.

The park was established on January 13, 1992, but its roots go back further. In 1978 the area was marked off as a restricted forest. More than 45 years of protection have followed. That was long enough for the great timber trees to grow into a high canopy, and long enough for animals to have homes and feeding grounds where nobody disturbs them night after night.

The park covers almost 71,000 hectares. That number is hard to picture, but standing in the middle of Cát Tiên, you can feel what it means. This is not a small patch of woods. It is a large ecosystem with many kinds of forest. There is broadleaf evergreen forest and semi-deciduous evergreen forest. There are timber trees mixed with bamboo, and stands of pure bamboo. And there is vegetation that floods with the seasons.

In 2001, UNESCO recognized the area as a world biosphere reserve. A biosphere reserve is a UNESCO-recognized area where nature is protected and the people living there keep working the land. In 2012, the park was ranked a Special National Monument. These titles are not labels stuck on a tourist stop. They are the result of many decades of protection, and they record a real fact. This is one of the most important areas of natural forest left in southern Vietnam.

Inside the park, there are several routes to follow. The Nature Museum and the Animal Rescue Center are a good place to learn about the species the park protects before going deep into the forest.

Another route runs past an ancient Tung tree and a Gõ tree. It also passes the Bến Cự rapids. The big timber trees along it show how a Cát Tiên forest is built. There is the canopy and the lower layer, then the ground cover, the streams and small habitats of their own.

The night tour is the most distinctive experience. It leaves every evening, and visitors ride in an open-top vehicle along the forest road. What appears depends on the season, the weather, luck and the conditions of that night. Deer, porcupines, rabbits and chồn are the animals most often seen. A bò tót may be seen, but no one can promise it. This is not a zoo. This is real forest, and a real forest does not keep our schedule.

One more thing must be said. A population of Javan rhinos once lived at Cát Tiên, but the last one on record died in 2010. The species has gone extinct locally in Vietnam. This is a real loss, a painful lesson about what happens when protection comes too late. It is not mentioned to make anyone sad. It helps explain why what remains, like Bàu Sấu and its freshwater crocodiles, matters so much.

Bàu Sấu is the heart of the conservation story at Cát Tiên. In 2005, it was recognized as Vietnam's second Ramsar site, a wetland of international importance. It is a wetland habitat in the core of the tropical rainforest, tied to the effort to bring freshwater crocodiles back. From 2000 to 2005, 60 crocodiles were released. In 2019, nearly 300 were recorded. After more than 20 years, the number passed 500.

Reaching Bàu Sấu means a long trip along the main road and then a walk along a forest trail. For anyone who makes the trip, the sight of open water in the middle of the forest, and an understanding of 20 years of crocodile conservation, is hard to forget.

As visitors leave Cát Tiên, the forest is still there behind them. Somewhere in the night, deer and porcupines are still moving along the roads the open-top vehicle has just passed. Under the water of Bàu Sấu, the crocodiles still glide in silence, in a place that was quiet long before people knew it.