ISLAND CATBA

Cat Ba Island

Ảnh: Internet
29 March 2006, Cat Ba Island, Vietnam
What’s an endangered monkey worth?
If it’s a Golden-Maned Langur - found only on Cat Ba Island, off the coast of North Vietnam, a few hours’ drive from Hanoi - the answer is, about a hundred bucks.
The Cat Ba langur is one of the world`s most endangered primate (second only to China`s Hainan Gibbon). There are only 64 Cat Ba langurs left - but that fact doesn`t mean much to poachers.

Before coming to Vietnam, I`d had the impression the monkeys were hunted for their meat; the Vietnamese eat just about everything, including dogs, cats, and porcupines. I was mistaken. Since the langurs eat very tannic leaves, their meat is bitter; it`s usually just thrown away.

The profit is in their bones, which are boiled down to a paste-like consistency, then steeped in rice brandy to make a medicinal tonic called "monkey balm wine."

"It`s part of the belief that eating jungle creatures will make you powerful," says Rosie Stenke - a wiry and intense woman who supervises a German project, funded in part by Seacology, to save the langurs. "Especially black creatures. And the Cat Ba langur, though it has golden hair, is mostly black." A single monkey, she tells me, can net a hunter 1.5 million Vietnam dong: close to $100 U.S. dollars.

Trapping a langur takes luck - and commitment. They`re rare and elusive. A poacher has to be ready to spend days in the jungle, climbing over jagged rocks and fending off snakes, mosquitoes, bees, and centipedes.

It`s illegal to hunt langurs, of course, but enforcement is sketchy: Dr. Stenke and her project serve as the eyes and arms of the law.

Since Rosie is thin and dresses in black I expect her to be manic and cynical, but she`s neither (not to excess, at least). She has been on Cat Ba island for more than five years, and has learned to be a politician as well as a conservationist. This means threading her way through the serpentine bureaucracy and iron-clad customs - many of which involve ritual toasts and drinking - of Vietnam.

Cat Ba is actually an archipelago, consisting of 366 islands. Many are tiny, and very close to the main island. In days past, huge mangrove swamps connected big Cat Ba with its satellites. When the mangroves were cut to build shrimp farms, a handful of langurs ended up marooned on separate isles. At present, the langur population on Cat Ba itself has 60 primates. There is a group of three females on an adjacent island, and one lone female on another. (Eventually, these females will be repatriated to the main group - although exactly how this will be accomplished is not yet clear.)

* * *
My first afternoon on Cat Ba island Rosie and I sit at the Nam Phuong Café, enjoying a lunch of noodles, spring rolls, and strong Vietnamese coffee. I learn a bit of her history. Rosie began her career studying primate behavior, "but once I understood the real issues, I switched to conservation." She spent 20 months in the Australian outback working with endangered wombats - the world`s largest marsupial - before moving to Vietnam in October 2000 to run the Cat Ba langur conservation project for Germany`s Zoological Society for the Conservation of Species and Populations (ZGAP).

Though Cat Ba is a pretty island, Cat Ba is not an attractive town. There`s a utilitarian feel to the tourism industry, a display of hospitality with little real warmth.

"Two kinds of tourists come here," says Rosie. "For Asians, it`s all about karaoke, seafood, and, for some, prostitution. For westerners, there`s even less." The first part of the only hiking trail in the national park was recently paved by the park department, in a misguided attempt to promote tourism. Kayaking has been introduced, but it`s sketchy, as the tides can be extremely low.

One attraction, for visitors like me, is boating between the hundreds of limestone islets, which tower out of the misty bay like tree-shrouded skyscrapers. On good days, it`s like sailing into a traditional Chinese landscape paintings, gliding amidst a panorama of high karst cliffs.

But tourism development, Rosie tells me, affects conservation dramatically. "We have loss of habitat, and habitat fragmentation. Tour guides who have no education take tourists wherever they want; we even had people rock-climbing next to the caves where the langurs sleep. We`re trying to reach an agreement now not to do such tours. That`s why you don`t see much advertising for langurs here. Luckily it`s not easy to see them, either, so tour operators can`t guarantee a sighting."

Some of the worst impacts on the natural environment have come from infrastructure for tourism - roads and hotels - and fish farms. Though Cat Ba is a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve, Vietnam`s deputy Prime Minster declared in 2001 that Cat Ba was