Site: Cat Ba National Park, Cat Ba Island
Type of Partnership: Enabling activity for small business development in support of conservation.
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Description:

Cat Ba Island is the largest of 366 islands in the Cat Ba Archipelago, in the Ha Long Bay World Heritage site. The area is a partially submerged karst landscape, with islands rising steeply from the shallow marine waters with sheer vertical cliffs topped with tropical most limestone forest. Spectacular rock formations are a scenic attraction and major tourist destination. Cat Ba Island also has coral terraces, beaches, and freshwater and coastal wetlands including mangroves. The golden-headed langur (Trachypithecus poliocephalus), identified as one of the world's most critically endangered primate species by IUCN, is only found on Cat Ba Island in Halong Bay. Poaching had reduced it to several isolated sub-populations and only 52 individuals by 2000.

Through project funding from a variety of sources, including the US, British, and Australian governments, and the UNDP GEF Small Grants Programme, the National Park authority is working with communities and organizations such as the Australian Foundation for the Peoples of Asia and the Pacific (AFAP), the Worldwide Fund for Nature, Fauna and Flora International, and the the Zoological Society for the Conservation of Species and Populations (ZGAP) to reduce the threat to the critically endangered golden-headed Cat Ba langur by promoting environmental awareness, increased protection, and and sustainable livelihoods. Alternative income sources, such as bee-keeping, for households who might otherwise be reliant on hunting has helped to maintain the population of langurs, whose numbers are now increasing.

USAID is supporting efforts to introduce environmentally friendly tourism practices on Cat Ba Island that provide economic benefits to the local population, not just city-based tourism companies. A pilot project is raising awareness of eco-tourism opportunities to demonstrate that sustainable tourism practices can provide higher-yield, lower-impact benefits. Activities have included training hotels in eco-certification standards for energy and water use, building the capacity of a local hotel association, promoting traditional architecture and performances to attract eco-tourists, and developing a community-based cooperative in Viet Hai, a village in Cat Ba National Park. Residents involved in tourism development have visited other areas of Vietnam and Thailand to learn best practices in developing tourism that helps the poor.

Hotel owners in Cat Ba have begun to realize the benefits of eco-certification standards, from reduced water and electricity use to new marketing opportunities. In addition, the Vietnam National Tourism Administration recently revised the draft Law on Tourism to include sections that specifically promote eco-certification. In Viet Hai, villagers and leaders have come to understand that lower-impact, community-based tourism is more beneficial when the revenue generated goes to residents. The success of the program is serving as a model for alternative, more sustainable development in Cat Ba Island.