Conservationist off to save rare rhino

By ANNE BESTON environment reporter

A New Zealand conservationist has left Auckland's environmental problems behind in a bid to help save the world's rarest rhino.

Auckland Forest and Bird Society chairman Kit Howden will spend the next two years at Nam Cat Tien National Park in southern Vietnam as part of a stint with Volunteer Service Abroad.

The 150,000ha park - about twice the size of Tongariro National Park - is one of the world's conservation hotspots and last refuge in Vietnam of the critically endangered Javan rhino.

According to the World Wildlife Fund, the rhinoceros is possibly the most threatened large mammal in the world. Between 10 and 15 live in a remote part of the park.

The animals have never been seen by a foreign scientist or tourist in Cat Tien. About 60 of the rhinos are thought to be left in Indonesia.

The conservation problems of Vietnam might be a long way from erosion on Auckland's volcanic cones or battles with local councils but the fight to preserve public space is the same worldwide, Mr Howden says.

"It's about how much we can manipulate wild natural areas for our own ends and what are the limits.

"[Cat Tien] is a big change but it's something I've always wanted to do."

He expects most of his time to be taken up advising the park's 35 rangers on conservation strategies and public education programmes.

Cat Tien National Park is 150km north of Ho Chi Minh City and was a Viet Cong stronghold. Huge tracts of the country's rainforest were devastated by defoliants during the Vietnam War but Cat Tien largely escaped.

Since 1992 the Vietnam Government has sought international help in trying to preserve the parkland and the critically endangered species which live there.

Apart from the rhino, it is home to the rare clouded leopard, the Siamese crocodile and the Asian elephant.