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March 21, 2007
Cat Ba Biosphere Reserve
Located in the north west of Vietnam, about 50km from Halong city and ajacent to the Halong Bay world heritage site, the Cat Ba archipelago is internationally important for its limestone karst hills and islands. It is one of the best examples in the world of a karst landscape by the sea. The 366 limestone islands contain landforms, caves and cave deposits that provide evidence of a long history of erosion and landscape evoluton. Many of the small islands rise steeply or vertically from the shallow marine waters and are the distinguishing feature of the region. The bigger of the islands, including 285km Cat Ba island itself, are covered by evergreen monsoon forest.
The archipelago is of global importance due to the high number of species found nowhere else. The golden-headed langur is one of the ten rarest primates in the world due to its resticted range and small population size. There are also regionally important habitat types including fringing coral reefs, mangrove forests, sea grass beds, willow swamp forest and tropical limbstone forest. Most of the habitats are under severe threat, especially due to encroachment. With these special values Cat Ba was acknowleged as a World Biosphere Reserve in 2004.
Posted by admins at March 21, 2007 3:42 AM