A new study published in the open-access journal Nature Conservation assesses the threat status of bird species from Vietnam, underscores the country’s critical conservation needs.

Vietnam is well known for its extraordinary level of biodiversity, particularly its very rich bird fauna. However, although the country is home to more than 900 species, Vietnamese ornithologist and co-author of the study Dr. Hung Le Manh from the Institute of Biology (IB), Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, Hanoi, stresses that no efforts had been made to assess their conservation status to better protect them from extinction risks.

For this reason, the study which was based on a master thesis performed by Helena Hackenbroch at the University of Cologne, Germany, provides a comprehensive list of bird species reported from Vietnam, incorporating threat statuses, identifying avian richness hotspots and their coverage by the national protected area network. The implementation of the IUCN’s “One Plan Approach to Conservation” is examined.

The study reveals that of the 803 native bird species, with ten of them only occurring in Vietnam, only 43 are currently listed as threatened in the IUCN Red List. At an international scale, an additional 87 species are listed in the Appendices of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Prof. Dr. Truong Quang Nguyen, vice director of the IB, and Editor-in-Chief of the new edition of the Vietnam Red Data Book highlights that a total of 61 species are listed in the 2007 version of Vietnam Red Data Book, 112 species in the updated version published in 2024 and, in addition, 138 species are included under national decrees.

Ass. Prof. Dr. Dennis Rödder from the Leibniz-Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB), Bonn, Germany, stresses that highest bird species richness was found in northern and central Vietnam, and the Mekong Delta is an important area for non-breeding species, but it had comparatively low protected area coverage.

Zoo databases (ZIMS) show that 308 species are represented in zoo holdings, including 20 threatened and two threatened and endemic species. One of these species, the Vietnam pheasant, listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List, which has not been reported from the wild in Vietnam since 2000 and is one of the flagship species of the current VIETNAMAZING conservation campaign and network, is now to be released back into the wild to restock the natural populations.

The team led by Prof. Dr. Thomas Ziegler, Cologne Zoo and the Institute of Zoology at the University of Cologne, has contributed to identifying gaps in conservation of Vietnamese vertebrates. Three papers written by the team have already been published in Nature Conservation: amphibians (2022), reptiles (2023), and mammals (2024). These threat analyses are intended to accelerate effective conservation measures by implementing IUCN’s “One Plan Approach” and the “Reverse the Red” initiative.

This updated avifaunal assessment underscores Vietnam’s critical conservation needs, highlighting areas for improved protection, integration of expanded ex situ conservation efforts, and alignment of legislation with global conservation priorities, says Ass. Prof. Dr. Minh D. Le from Central Institute for Natural Resources and Environmental Studies (CRES), Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam.