Dong Nai Nature and Culture Reserve

Forest, lake and history share one space here, and none of them can be told without the others.

That is the shortest way to describe the Đồng Nai Nature and Culture Reserve in southeastern Vietnam, in the region called Đông Nam Bộ. It covers more than 100,000 hectares. About 68,000 hectares of that is forest land, and over 32,000 hectares is the water of Trị An Lake.

The reserve was founded in 2003. In 2010 it took its present name, which joins nature and culture. The double name is no accident. This is a place where nature and the history of the revolution have grown together over many decades. The Mã Đà forest was once part of Chiến khu Đ, a wartime base of the revolution. Trị An Lake appeared in the 1980s, after a hydropower dam was built. And beneath all those layers, a natural forest ecosystem is still protected as the core of the Đồng Nai biosphere reserve.

A biosphere reserve is a UNESCO-recognized area where nature is protected and the people living there keep working the land. UNESCO recognized the Đồng Nai biosphere reserve in 2011. Its core is two large areas, Cát Tiên National Park and this reserve. The two are linked, and together they form one wide ecological region, from forested mountains to rivers, lakes and wetlands.

Then there is the life itself. A survey in 2012 recorded 1,817 species of wild animals in the reserve. The count of higher plants reaches 1,552 species. These numbers are not fixed. They grow with each survey season, and with each stretch of forest that no one has yet had time to reach.

Beyond nature, history and culture are the reserve's second pillar. The Chiến khu Đ sites lie inside it. Some are ranked as national monuments, among them the Southeast Regional Party Committee site, the Suối Linh Tunnels and the Central Office for the South. The Party Committee site covers the years from 1961 to 1967, and it was recognized as a national monument in 1997.

The Suối Linh Tunnels are among the most striking examples of military engineering here. The system has a communication trench 260.7 meters long and 12 tunnel entrances. The linked tunnels themselves run 383.5 meters. People dug them in the dark, amid the sound of bombs, with their bare hands.

The Chơ Ro Longhouse is a place to learn about the culture of the Chơ Ro people. It holds photographs, documents and objects about their customs, practices and beliefs. This is a third layer of value in the reserve. The Chơ Ro have lived on this land since before anyone spoke of a reserve at all.

The reserve can be explored in several ways. For nature, walking trails run through the Mã Đà forest, and bicycle routes cross the forest too, from 20 to 36 kilometers long depending on fitness. The longest links the Southeast Regional Party Committee site, the Suối Linh Tunnels and the Cù Đinh ranger station. It covers 36 kilometers, with stream crossings and steep climbs, and suits people in good physical shape. For history, a boat route on Trị An Lake joins the Party Committee site. For culture, another route leads to the Chơ Ro Longhouse.

The reserve is not a place for a souvenir photo and a quick trip home. Cycling through old forest, a visitor hears stream water running beneath trees that are decades old. At the mouth of a tunnel, one remembers that the ground underfoot was once a battlefield. Nature and history are not separate here, and together they quietly keep something very large. In the afternoon, a boat glides over the calm surface of Trị An Lake, and the low sun falls on the wide water.