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Situated about 40 km from the city of Buon Ma Thuot in the Central Highlands, the Yok Don National Park is an ancient tropical forest that covers more than 100,000 hectares. The butterfly-shape park is divided by the Serepok River, providing a valuable food source for the wide variety of tropical flora and fauna species, including elephants.
At the entrance of the Yok Don Park’s tourist area, you can see large cement statues of elephants. Not long ago, five wild elephants were moved into this park from the Tanh Linh forest in central Vietnam.
Sharing a border with Cambodia on the west, the Yok Don National Park was established in 1992 and includes two forestry farms and the Yok Don natural forest. Vietnamese and foreign forestry researchers are seeking means to preserve the natural forests at Yok Don, which has a forest coverage of some 85 percent - the highest rate in Vietnam''s Central Highlands.
Most recently, scientists from BirdLife International and the Vietnam Ecological and Biological Natural Resource Institute discovered a red-headed crane at Yok Don. The bird is listed as an endangered specie that usually migrates to Vietnam''s Mekong Delta from Cambodia and southern Laos. Another critically endangered bird, the Ibis was also discovered by scientists during their bio-diversity survey. The Ibis was thought to be extinct in Vietnam since it was last seen in 1931 by a French environmentalist.
Given its rich natural resources, the Yok Don National Park is defined by the Vietnamese Government as one of two zones under the Bio-diversity Comprehensive Plan of Action. It will become the most sustainable natural reserve in Vietnam.
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