Kim Hy Nature Reserve

Hardly a visitor's footprint marks the forest of Kim Hỷ Nature Reserve. Sheer limestone cliffs stand over caves and streams that run underground, and ancient nghiến trees grow between them.

The reserve lies in the old Bắc Kạn region, which became part of Thái Nguyên Province in July 2025, when the two provinces merged. It is one of the least talked about special-use forests in northern Vietnam. Special-use forest is the class of forest that Vietnam keeps mainly for conservation and scientific research. Being little known does not mean being of little value. A national website on nature conservation and biodiversity describes Kim Hỷ as a typical area of limestone mountain forest in the northeast. Here steep rock, caves, underground streams and old nghiến forest share a stretch of land that people have not disturbed much.

Kim Hỷ was founded in 2003 by decision of the People's Committee of Bắc Kạn Province. Its core zone was later reviewed and set at nearly 15,000 hectares. The reserve spreads over seven communes in the old Na Rì and Bạch Thông areas. The land is sharply broken, with mountains of earth and mountains of rock. The limestone mountains in the west and southwest stand 600 to 700 meters high on average. The highest peak among them is Áng Toòng, which rises to 1,117 meters.

The terrain is not all that makes Kim Hỷ special. In 2025 the Thái Nguyên newspaper reported what the reserve has recorded. Its plants include more than 1,060 species of higher plants in 171 families. Of these, 57 are listed in the Red Book of Vietnam. Its animals with backbones come to nearly 500 species in 96 families. There are 99 mammals, 256 birds, 64 reptiles and 39 amphibians.

These numbers are not for memorizing. They point to a gene bank that is still alive, still at work, and still needs to be kept as it is.

Among the rare species still protected at Kim Hỷ is the voọc đen má trắng, a primate under threat worldwide. There is the musk deer, a small and secretive animal of the limestone forest. There are also a three-striped box turtle, a silver pheasant, a gà tiền mặt vàng, the sơn dương, and many kinds of civet and wildcat. Among the plants, du sam đá vôi and thiết sam giả are conifers typical of limestone mountain forest, and few places still keep them.

The former Bắc Kạn Province approved an ecotourism plan for Kim Hỷ covering 2022 to 2030. It opens the prospect of welcoming visitors in small, selected numbers. The routes it sketches run from Bản Kẹ to Minh Tinh Cave. They go on through Dơi Cave and Thẳm Mu, and then to waterfalls and caves deep in the forest.

The beauty of Kim Hỷ does not lie in services or signboards. Minh Tinh Cave hides behind a forest where nobody waits at the entrance. On the trails through the core zone, the Khuổi Cải stream runs underground beneath the rock and then breaks suddenly into the light. Nghiến trees hundreds of years old stand as straight as the pillars of a communal house, wider than three people can embrace. And somewhere in the canopy above, a voọc đen má trắng may be looking down, quiet and entirely free.