The scientists judged that Ha Long Bay has a high diversification with the tropical sea area’s typical ecosystem and a variety of species and gen sources. After the heavy damages came up because of the Yagi storm,  islands’ vegetation were significantly devastated as trees’ roots were broken and uprooted, just only denuded branches left that turn the inherent green color of the islets here into a bare brown. This is actually a huge and difficult math that needs to be dealt with to recreate the previous green of Ha Long Bay.

According to the information of Ha Long Management Board, the scientists currently confirmed that around 3000 animal and plant species living on the typical limestone ecosystems. There are also other ecosystems of the bay such as vegetation, cave, mangrove swamp and coral reef ecosystems. In particular, there are 15 endemic plant species, 102 items (including 21 plant and 81 animal species) were recognized as valuable, rare and having a remarkable extinction risk that was noted in Vietnam’s Red Book in 2007.

Moreover, Ha Long Bay’s coral reef ecosystem is very unique and created by firm coral species. According to an outcome of the survey in 2005, Ha Long Bay was a living place of 110 coral species, which generally lived in Cong Do, Tra San, Hang Trai, Dai Be areas with a cover of around 30 to 45%. Due to the environment being relatively stable, along with that there are a lot of caves to shelter and run away from the enemies so that the place is an ideal destination for many creatures. In which, there were still precious species that had a high extinction threat in Vietnam’s red List in 2007.

Recently, to precisely access to the current situation of the vegetation here, Ha Long Management Board invited specialists from the creature Resource – Ecology Constitution (Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology) to survey and judge the state of Ha Long Bay after Yagi storm and advice preserved solutions and bring into play sustainable values of the Bay.

The survey was carried out in some focused areas. Accordingly, the phenomenon of tree falling, branch breakage and leaf loss has little difference, much depending on the impact of the wind.

For example, the rocky mountains in Thien Cung – Dau Go cave or So and Ba Hang caves are 100% affected, of which 70% are resilient, 30% are not resilient due to uprooting and breaking. The Vung Vieng point is about 70-80% of the trees that have fallen leaves and broken.

The other areas like Sung Sot cave, Titov island, Co cave, Me Cung and Soi Sim islets that had a lot of palm breaking branches and tops but recovered ability still remained. Ha Long palm of Titop cave is developing in the tree canopy. The trees of Tien Ong – Cua Van are firmly maintained as 15 Ha Long palms here are growing normally. Besides, a lot of trees are in bud and have young leaves but it takes around 4 or 6 months to see clearly the restoration.

The final result showed that vegetation cover on limestone islets will negatively affect some endemic plants as well as Ha Long Bay’s landscape. At the same time, it also gives great impact to the living environment of wild species such as birds, reptiles and regular food source of Macaca mulatta yellow monkeys, who are living in the heritage islets. 

On the one hand, dry leaves and trunks on the islands are also at high risk of forest fires, especially in the upcoming dry season. Therefore, experts recommend that in some areas with a high risk of fire such as the area of Dau Go – Thien Cung cave, Sung Sot cave, Ti Top, it is necessary to take measures to prevent forest fires, install fire prohibition signs, fire protection signs, especially at tourist attractions…

Quang Ninh Tourism Information Promotion Center