FIELD TRIP REPORT WITH

REFLECTION

Lecturer: Erwin Losekoot

Course Name: Eco -Tourism & Sustainable Hospitality
Student Name: Nguyen Ngoc Khanh Tran
Student ID: s3732391
Word count:
 A. Field Trip Report:
Last week, I had a chance to visit Tram Chim national park, which is located in Dong
Thap province. This park is a top destination in Dong Thap as it is the fourth Ramsar site of
Vietnam and placed the 2000th site of Wetlands of International Importance. According to
Rsis.ramsar.org (2018), the park covers an area of 700,000 hectares of Mekong Delta in
southwestern of Vietnam. The site is “one of the last ​remnants of the Plain of Reeds wetland
ecosystem”.

Reproduced from Vietnam Online Newspaper Reproduced from daln.gov.vn

I. Key sustainability management issues:
1. The climate change:
Tram Chim national park has more than 250 birds included 33 rare birds and Sarus
Crane is listed in the Red book. Climate change tends to influence the animals’ food chain in
which temperature factor plays a crucial role in the development of organisms and species. It
also causes severe damage such as flood in rainy seasons and drought, forest fire, water
depletion in dry seasons. This affect the habitats and living conditions of some migratory
birds (Tran Ngoc Quynh, 2015). According to Shepherd (2008), the Sarus crane spend the
dry seasons stay in the park and it will not leave immediately when the park lacks food and
drinks. Besides, the ecosystem here was damaged severely in recent years due to the
undeveloped and falling of mangrove forest when it is flooded and flammable when the
weather is dry.
2. The human activities:
There are conflicts between nearby poor local residents with the national park. The
problem is the local people usually use the park’s property without the awareness of negative
effect to the environment and society aspects in the long-term. The main reason is because
most of the people who live surrounding Tram Chim national park are low educational
qualifications so they have less understanding about the value of resources to human life
(Tran Ngoc Quynh, 2015). For example, the local people here exploit, intrude and use the
natural resources of Tram Chim national park such as using electricity and blast for fishing,
fire beehive to take honey leads to forest fires unintentionally. The same thing had happened
in U Minh Thuong forest before made it was hard to control the park carefully in peak times
(Do Hong, 2018).
II. Sustainability indicators for site evaluation:
1. Economic aspect:
Le Huu Tuy, Standing Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Dong Thap Tourism
Company, stated that the demand for tourists from the city center to the river is increasing. As
a result, in 2017, Tram Chim national park attracted more than 134000 tourists, which
increased 28,87% compare to 2016. The total turnover was 7,7 billion VND, increased
118,71% compare to 2016 ​(Thiennhien.net, 2018).
2. Social aspect:
In order to give tourists a true sense of the livelihood of the river, Tram Chim National Park
has actively cooperated with nearly 30 local households to conduct the experience tour.
Tourists come here to experience live fishermen, floating net, fishing or to catch crabs, snails,
fishes.​(Thiennhien.net, 2018)
In 2007, more than 6000 local people are allowed to exploit seafood and vegetables in an area
of 900 hectares in Tram Chim national park from September to December. By supporting
people to use resources has helped the average household income increased to 1.46 million
VND per month.​(Dantri.com.vn, 2018)
3. Environmental aspect:
According to Dantri newspaper, in 2007, the government in Dong Thap province had
cooperated with WWF and Coca-Cola to implement the project "Biodiversity conservation
and community-based ecotourism development".
III. Conclusions:
In conclusion, Tram Chim national park with an enormous wildlife biodiversity:
animal and vegetation communities is the place that need to be invested, developed and
restored more in the near future.
IV. Recommendations:
● For climate change issue:
-In order to reduce the affection of climate change, besides water retention, proper fire
regulation and good management of water levels to create habitat for vegetation, Sarus crane,
local authorities need to promote propaganda to the local people.
-As the degraded species such as yellow snail, glass lobster, water hyacinth, mimosa and
Melaleuca trees invade all other communities, we need to cut it down and usually tidy up the
species in the lakes, ponds and drains.
● For human activities issue:
-Shepherd (2008) stated that “Dykes were constructed in 1985 to block the excessive
drainage of floodwaters from the wetland. Although this prevented local people from
harvesting the rejuvenated forest, it maintained sufficient moisture to protect the Melaleuca
forest against fires.” This activity helped the park to conserve natural resources but limited
local people to earn a living. The recommendation is that the national park needs to give
residents another way to earn a living such as integrating with local people in the area to
bring traditional handicraft products: dry village of Phu Tho, Phu Hiep commune and new
products such as Melaleuca honey, crab shells to attract tourists.
-From 2012, local authorities allowed people to explore the resources in reasonable way such
as trim dry wood , fisheries, harvest lily, vegetables, catching yellow snails and exploit
pasture for cattle feed. This activity had led to the mprovemnet of local people‘s living
standard (50.000 VND/people/day), besides the poor also have stable jobs in rainy season,
reducing the pressure for the park in the management of protected resources.(Tran Ngoc
Quynh, 2015)
B. Reflection:
The reason why I decided to have my field trip report in Tram Chim national park is because
I am interested in experiencing the wildlife and beautiful landscape of nature in Vietnam and
Dong Thap province is not really far away from Ho Chi Minh city, which took me 3 hours to
go by motorbike. Otherwise, travelling to this park helps me to understand clearer about the
theory that I had been learnt in classes.
As it has been mentioned before, I have found many issues that the local people and
authorities have to deal with such as lack of capital, infrastructure and transportation,
negative impacts from human activities, rare species are in the verge of extinction, climate
change, the unbalanced of water level in dry seasons and rainy seasons, I choose the two most
popular sustainability that almost every tourist attraction have to face with is climate change
and human activities. In order to found out the reasons for these problems, we did not only
have to interview the managers, local residents, local authorities but also the employees who
are currently working there. These people can be considered as stakeholders of Tram Chim
national park and have a certain knowledge about this site. In order to collect an adequate
information from people here, we need to bring many equipment such as camera, recorder,
papers and pens to take note. After collecting the data, we classified to choose which issues
affect the park and people here the most as well as asking them about the government
solutions. The results we received from the information did not surprised us much because it
just around two main aspects: the people and the environment. However, the way the local
authorities solved the problems helps me to have another view from different aspects. For
example, the way they divide the park into many areas and each of this site will suit for
different people with different purpose: there will be a zone for tourists to visit and another
zone outside the park for local people to exploit. Moreover, the activities that tourists
participate in (catch yellow snails) not only helps them to have new experience in Vietnam
but also helps the park to reduce the species that hamper the development of other species.
The trip ended and we went back to our home. At first I think the trip will not interesting and
attracts me but after spending the whole day experiencing and learning new knowledge about
the nature-based tourism in Tram Chim national park and applying theory that have been
learnt to real life, I really excited and looking forward to come back to this site again to enjoy
the nature more.
References:
Dantri.com.vn. (2018). ​Cải thiện đời sống người dân Tràm Chim từ dự án phát triển du lịch.
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<​https://dantri.com.vn/vong-quay-du-lich/cai-thien-doi-song-nguoi-dan-tram-chim-tu-du-an-
phat-trien-du-lich-20150825141803651.htm​>

Do Hong, T. (2018). ​Phát triển du lịch bền vững - Đâu là giải pháp cho Việt Nam? Retrieved
16 September 2018 from
<​http://www.hanoitourist.com.vn/kinhnghiemtour/kinhnghiem/kn-quan-ly/1807-phat-trien-be
n-vung​>

DO, T. H. A. N. G. N. A. M. and BENNETT, J. E. F. F. (2009) “Estimating wetland

biodiversity values: a choice modelling application in Vietnam's Mekong River Delta,”
Environment and Development Economics.​ Cambridge University Press, 14(2), pp. 163–186.
doi: 10.1017/S1355770X08004841.

Reed, M., Fraser, E. and Dougill, A. (2006). An adaptive learning process for developing and
applying sustainability indicators with local communities. ​Ecological Economics​, 59(4),
pp.406-418.

Rsis.ramsar.org(2018). ​Tram Chim National Park | Ramsar Sites Information Service.

Retrieved 16 September 2018​ from<​https://rsis.ramsar.org/ris/2000​>

Shepherd, G. (2008). ​The ecosystem approach​. Gland: IUCN.

Tran Ngoc Quynh (2015). ​The valuation of tram chim national park 's ecosystem structures​.
Retrieved 16 September 2018 from
<​https://www.slideshare.net/RubyTran3/tram-chim-national-park-biodiversity-valuation-and-
the-management​>

Trí, N.V(2013) . Biến đổi đa dạng sinh học vườn quốc gia Tràm Chim. Retrieved 16
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<​http://www.vietnamplus.vn/bien-doi-da-dang-sinh-hoc-vuon-quoc-gia-tram-chim/213201.v
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