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| Characterization of land types
The edge of old growth primary forest is not easily reached by walking from
the Khe Tran village. Some of the oldest patches of forest lie close to the mountain
tops or on steep slopes reached only after more than one hour’s climb and walk.
The only plot in mature secondary forest closest to the condition of primary forest
was established in 60-to-70-year-old stands visited regularly, but not often, by
villagers. Men and women come to this site to collect rattan, honey and metal. The
forest was afforded protected status by the provincial government in 1983, and the
earlier regular hunting for bear, ‘helmeted’ hornbills, elephants and porcupines
was thus forbidden along with timber production activities.
Shrub lands (or bare hills) are a rather heterogeneous land type category with
areas that have a history of having been under sugar cane cultivation (Plot 2) but
are now fallows waiting to be converted to production area. Villagers describe
those barren areas without any clear function for villagers as being degraded or
barren because of the impact of chemicals during the war time (Plot 8).
7.2. Specimen collection and identification
A total of 754 plant specimens were collected from 11 plots (Figure 16). In addition
to systematic plot sampling of trees and non-trees, the most abundant seedling,
sapling, shrub and monocot species were also recorded and sampled separately. In
the text all the categories of ‘abundant’ species refer to this separate census, if not
otherwise stated. Table 19 shows the division of specimens in trees, non-trees and
abundant species. In total 108 families comprising 260 genera and 439 species
were recorded (Annex 3 provides the botanical names, families and local name
of specimens collected within and outside the plots). The number of unidentified
taxa remains high due to the technical difficulties in sampling as well as the high
vascular plant richness of the area.
The sampling was not exhaustive, and was not supposed to be so, as one
of the main objectives of using MLA was to test the relevance of such a tool in
the Vietnamese context. Nevertheless the sampling using 11 plots in total was
considered rigorous and adequate for non-tree representativeness, since the curves
of cumulating numbers of non-tree vascular plant species laid against cumulating
numbers of random subplots are levelling out for most land types (Figure 17).
There was surprisingly diverse under storey in the plantation forests and thus they
could have been sampled with an additional plot. For trees this short inventory time
did not enable as good sampling as for non-trees, but nevertheless the collected
data can be used as a basis for recommendations and considerations of further
inventories of the forests. For trees the accumulation curves show in most of the
land types no levelling down, pointing to the need for more plots, which were
unfeasible considering the time constraints.