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Site description (2002 baseline):
Site location and context
This IBA comprises Kon Cha Rang Nature Reserve. A mountainous plateau dominates the topography of the site. Forest covers 15,610 ha or 98% of the total area of Kon Cha Rang Nature Reserve. The main forest type is lower montane evergreen forest, distributed at altitudes between 900 and 1,500 m in the north-west of the nature reserve. Kon Cha Rang lies within the Kon Tum Plateau Endemic Bird Area. Nine bird species and nine mammal species recorded at Kon Cha Rang are considered globally threatened.
Non-bird biodiversity: Anon. (1999) list the occurrence of the following threatened mammal species at Kon Cha Rang: Asiatic Black Bear Ursus thibetanus, Dhole Cuon alpinus, Clouded Leopard Pardofelis nebulosa and Tiger Panthera tigris. Anon. (1999) also recorded three globally threatened primate species at Kon Cha Rang Nature Reserve: Stump-tailed Macaque Macaca arctoides, Grey-shanked Douc Langur Pygathrix nemaeus cinerea and Yellow-cheeked Crested Gibbon Nomascus gabrielle and two globally threatened ungulate species: Megamuntiacus vuquangensis and Naemorhedus sumatraensis. Podocarpus neriifolius has been recorded at Kon Cha Rang Nature Reserve by Anon. (1999).
Up until 1975, people lived within the boundaries of what is now the nature reserve, although, today, there are no people living inside the nature reserve.
Pressure/threats to key biodiversity
The four main threats to biodiversity at Kon Cha Rang are perceived to be forest clearance for coffee plantations, hunting, exploitation of forest products and forest fire (BirdLife International and FIPI, 2001).
Conservation responses/actions for key biodiversity
Although the establishment of Kon Cha Rang Nature Reserve was decreed in 1986, prior to the BirdLife/FIPI survey in 1999, no conservation initiatives had been implemented at the site.Kon Cha Rang Nature Reserve, together with Kon Ka Kinh Nature Reserve, is the focus of a medium-sized GEF project currently being developed by Gia Lai Provincial People's Committee and BirdLife International. This project is still in the early stages of development but the objectives are expected to include the preparation and implementation of management plans for the two nature reserves and the intervening forest areas, generating support among stakeholders for the sustainable management of the project area, and building the capacity of the nature reserve authorites.
Kon Cha Rang Nature Reserve is situated 12 km to the east of Kon Ka Kinh Nature Reserve, linked by intervening forest areas. The two nature reserves, therefore, form an area large enough to support viable populations of large mammals, such as Tiger Panthera tigris, that neither area could support in isolation. However, the intervening forest areas are currently under forest enterprise management. BirdLife and FIPI strongly recommend, in the future, these areas should be incorporated within the boundaries of the two nature reserves to form one continuous protected area (Le Trong Trai et al., 2000).
Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Important Bird Area factsheet: Kon Cha Rang (Vietnam). Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/site/factsheet/kon-cha-rang-iba-vietnam on 22/11/2024.
